Carbon Farming, Rules and Reality: A Personal Reflection

1. Introduction: Between Study and the Field

In recent months, I have immersed myself in the world of carbon certifications applied to regenerative agriculture. Not just as an observer, but as the founder of a startup that is trying to build a network, a dialogue, and a bridge between daily farming practices and scientific validation tools.

I have studied the main international standards, participated in working groups, and sought direct feedback from certification bodies, universities, and researchers. Clear answers have not yet emerged, but perhaps that is due to the sector’s infancy. The system, at least here in Italy, seems to move at a snail’s pace. However, this is no reason to give up on collaboration.

I am asking myself several crucial questions:

• Why do regulatory frameworks seem more concerned with internal theoretical consistency than the flexibility needed on the ground?
• Why is applying global models to complex and localized agricultural realities so difficult?
• How can we ensure that small and medium-sized actors in regenerative agriculture are recognized and concretely supported?

2. Between Two Worlds That Seldom Speak

There is a recurring obstacle that I keep encountering on my journey: the difficulty of truly bridging the gap between the agricultural world and the technical-regulatory world.

• On one side, those working in the field possess empirical experience, intuition, and deep knowledge of their land.
• On the other side, those who draft frameworks operate in a technical and often abstract language, driven by rigid goals of auditability and financial scalability.

The constant feeling is that the two sides speak entirely different languages.

On my self-taught path, I have tried to act as a translator between these two realities, attempting to foster a dialogue between theory and practice. It is long, demanding, and often solitary work. Doors do not open easily, and when they do, behind them lie models designed for contexts, logics, and geographic scales completely different from ours.

This is not about assigning blame, but rather stating a fact: there is still a massive amount of work to be done to make carbon farming tools genuinely applicable and useful for those who till the soil every day. What is missing is not expertise, but a functional interface. And until it is built, we risk excluding from the climate transition the very people who should be its main protagonists.

3. The Questions We Should Ask Ourselves More Often

The deeper one delves into certification frameworks, the more apparent it becomes that many parameters are calibrated for agricultural systems far removed from the Italian one.

Regenerative practices applied on a single hectare in Italy do not have the same impact—nor the same fixed costs—as a large-scale plantation in Latin America or Asia. Yet, the methodologies imposed are often identical. Or worse: calibrated for contexts where the carbon credit has economic value only because the cost of the land is near zero.

This begs the question: what kind of value are we actually measuring?

If we do not consider local details like microclimate, fragmented land ownership structure, crop constraints, and real-world logistics, can we truly talk about regenerative agriculture, or are we just trying to force reality into a prefabricated mold?

The concrete risk is that the farmer ends up having to translate their physical work into complex bureaucratic formulas, losing the real meaning of what they do in the field. Added to this is the economic barrier: can a small Italian farmer afford a certification costing tens of thousands of euros? And even if they could, how long would they have to wait before seeing a tangible economic return?

4. Between Vision and Reality: Can We Do Carbon Farming in Italy?

My goal is simple: to develop carbon farming projects in Italy. To facilitate the spread of regenerative practices here, where farms are often family-run and the landscape is fragmented yet incredibly rich in biodiversity. There is enormous potential to value not only the carbon sequestered in the soil but also the widespread ecological intelligence of the territory.

With my startup, I am trying to build models that return dignity and economic value to those who work the land. In our projects, up to 85% of the carbon credit value is destined directly to the farmers. Because without them, no real change would be possible.

However, today starting carbon farming projects in Italy feels almost countercurrent. Models, metrics, and large capitals prefer to move elsewhere. More and more startups and companies are moving to the Global South, where large scales, low operational costs, and profitability simplify the creation of vast carbon credit portfolios.

At this point, the challenge before us becomes personal: can I remain faithful to my local vision, or will I have to yield to the logic of the global market?

Perhaps we will be forced to operate abroad as well to ensure the economic sustainability of the startup. But the question remains: what could we achieve if the system allowed us to build credible, regenerative, and verifiable projects right here in Italy?

Conclusion: An Open Discussion

This article stems from the desire to share a journey made of environmental ambitions, but also of great operational obstacles. The carbon credit market has extraordinary potential, but it cannot and must not be reduced to mere net zero accounting as an end in itself.

It must be a tool to incentivize good agricultural practices, support the ecological transition of territories, and economically value those who care for the soil every day. For this to happen, those who create the models must listen to those who live them on the ground.

Carbon credits should not be an abstract speculation, but a concrete ally of global regeneration.

What do you think? If you have experience in this field or thoughts to share, leave a comment below.

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