Carbon farming in action: key insights from the European Summit
Did you miss the Carbon Farming Summit 2025 earlier this month? Come join us on 3 April as we revisit the experience in our follow-up webinar!
On the 4-6th March 2025, Climate KIC organised the 2nd European Carbon Farming Summit, which took place in Dublin, Ireland. The event brought together over 500 participants, including farmers, policymakers, scientists, and industry leaders, all united around a common ambition: putting carbon farming to practice. The Carbon Farming Summit has provided valuable insights into the latest developments, challenges, and opportunities in the field of carbon farming.
To build on this momentum, this follow-up webinar aims to distil some of the key takeaways and insights from the summit specifically relevant to the land, agri-food context in Ireland and across Europe. Be ready to tune in to an engaging session!
Agenda:
- Introduction and welcome
- Presentation on the European Carbon Farming Summit by Climate KIC
- Panel discussion on takeaways
- Q&A with the audience
- Closing remarks
In case you missed it, all recordings from the EU Carbon Farming Summit sessions can be found on the Project Credible channel on YouTube. Please note that the content and discussions that will take place as part of this webinar are views held by the speakers themselves and do not reflect the official position of the Irish government’s Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, nor those of Climate KIC.
Panel Guests:
Sheila Darmos, Farmer, The Southern Lights: Sheila is a third generation farmer and a social entrepreneur in the agri-food sector and civic engagement field in Greece. Her key focuses lie within her lived physical and social environment, namely the farming and rural communities, and thus a systemic approach to enable transitions towards regeneration in a holistic way. Her dedication to soil and ecosystem restoration translates into her dedication to transforming the farming sector in Greece through the initiative “Regenerative Farming Greece”.
Lorcan Bannon, Head of Sustainability Ventures at Tirlán: Lorcan is responsible for driving sustainability venture opportunities for Tirlán, an Irish dairy co-operative based in Ireland. As part of this role, Lorcan conducts cross-industry market scanning to understand trends and to identify opportunities and solutions to sustainability problems in line with Tirlán’s ESG agenda. Lorcan previously worked as an Associate Director with advisory firm ifac, working with Ireland’s top emerging food and agtech businesses on due diligence, strategy development and funding supports. He also has experience of working with and mentoring a range of scaling companies. Lorcan’s education includes a Bcomm International (French) from UCD and Post Graduate Diplomas in Finance, Strategy, and Management.
Tessa van der Voort, researcher soils & carbon at the Nutrient Management Institute, Wageningen: Tessa’s work encompasses the entire spectrum of carbon farming, from developing scalable soil measurement techniques to creating robust scientific protocols and evaluating carbon farming projects all across the globe. She graduated from the ETH Zurich studying the permanence of soil carbon. In Wageningen she focuses on bringing scientific insights to farmers in the form of optimal advice for sustainable agriculture.
Our Moderator and Presenters:
Saskia Keesstra, Land Use Transformation Lead, Climate KIC: Saskia led the design and organisation of this year’s Carbon Farming Summit. She has over 16 years of experience in Sustainable Land Use research. As former Senior Researcher at Wageningen Environmental Research, Netherlands, her research focusses on understanding the processes that determine sustainable land and water use. In addition, much of her work focusses on the interaction with stakeholders, from farmers to policy makers, which is essential to come to usable, acceptable tools for sustainable land management and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Stewart Gee, Ireland Deep Demonstration programme lead, Climate KIC: Stewart has a lifetime working in agriculture. Born and raised on a cattle and sheep farm in the midlands, he studied agricultural and environmental science in UCD. Following 20 years of working on sustainable agriculture programming in developing countries, he joined Climate KIC to work on their partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. This initiative uses systems innovation approaches to close the gap between current reality and Ireland’s climate and sustainability ambitions. As part of this, he is supporting the development of the National Carbon Farming Framework.