The European Carbon Farming Summit has rapidly emerged as the leading platform for knowledge sharing and multi-actor dialogue aimed at shaping credible carbon farming markets and policies. The second edition of the Summit, held on March 4-6 2025 in Dublin, was a resounding success, attracting over 550 participants in person (and other 500 online), including researchers, business representatives, policymakers, and farmers.
The MARVIC project had a strong presence at the event, with around 25 partners attending and co-organising four sessions. These sessions addressed key topics covered by the project, such defining baseline approaches for monitoring soil carbon removals, data sharing for MRV, insetting for carbon farming, and the issue of non-permanence in carbon sequestration.
One of MARVIC’s core contributions lies in baseline definition. At the Summit, MARVIC coordinator Greet Ruysschaert (ILVO) co-organised the session Baseline approaches for monitoring soil carbon removals: public-private synergies, alongside Panos Panagos (JRC), Suzanne Reynders (INRAE, MARVIC and ORCaSa projects), and Marta Gómez Giménez (GMV and MRV4SOC project). The session examined different baseline methodologies and definitions and identified the most suitable approaches, delivering recommendations on local representativeness, modelling issues, the integration of remote sensing, incentives for early movers, and public-private synergies.
MARVIC partners Hui Xu (ILVO and Project Credible) and Edouard Lanckriet (Agrosolutions), together with Tommy D’Hose (ILVO and Project Credible), co-organised the session Unlocking data for MRV: Data sharing for effective carbon farming. This session focused on the critical role of robust data collection and sharing across the value chain for accurate MRV in carbon farming. Discussions also highlighted the importance and challenges of Long-Term Monitoring data, the “Collect Once, Use Many Times” principle, and the need for user-friendly digital tools and data-sharing platforms that balance privacy, competition, and openness.
In turn, the sessionInsetting for Carbon Farming: Turning Challenges into Opportunities for Farmers, Food Companies and Policy Makers tackled the financial and administrative burdens for farmers, the regulatory gaps in insetting, and the difficulty of assessing how farmers capture the value of carbon. The session was co-organised by Silvia Coderoni (University of Teramo, MARVIC), Hui Xu (ILVO, MARVIC and Credible projects), Berit Hasler (University of Copenhagen and MARVIC project), and Lisa Vanderheyden (UCLouvain and MRV4SOC project), alongside representatives from Rabobank, the Dutch farmers’ association ZLTO, and the dairy cooperative Friesland Campina.
Finally, the fourth session, titled (Non)-permanence and time dependency of carbon sequestration in carbon farming – current accounting approaches and ways ahead was co-organised by MARVIC partners Jens Leifeld (Agroscope), Edouard Lanckriet (Agrosolutions), Jan Peter Lesschen (Wageningen University & Research), and Flora Desmet (Agroscope), in collaboration with Jennie van der Kolk (Wageningen University & Research) and Axel Don (Thünen Institute). The session revolved around the inherently non-permanent nature of carbon removals and the need to account for this in carbon removals schemes. Moreover, the session explored the use of radiative forcing to compare temporary and permanent removals, a topic that was also covered at MARVIC’s second thematic webinar.
Following the fruitful discussions and insights gathered at the Summit, each session organiser is currently preparing a set of recommendations to assist the Carbon Farming and Carbon Removals (CRCF) policy development. These recommendations are already available on the Project Credible website and made available for public consultation.
