Ukraine has long been known as a breadbasket of the world, home to some of the planet’s richest soils and a critical supplier of food. But war has strained both communities and food systems. In this context, regenerative agriculture and carbon finance are proving to be lifelines. Farmers like Oleksandr Mustipan are finding ways to keep producing, stewarding their land even amid disruption.

“Before the full-scale war, we thought that we were working in very difficult conditions,” says Oleksandr. “Now, we understand it was easy work back then.”

Oleksandr is part of a growing movement. Across Europe, farmers are working with Agreena to shift toward climate-smart practices; they are building resilience, reducing emissions, and unlocking new income through carbon finance.

Oleksandr has spent over a decade helping modernize one of Ukraine’s largest agricultural companies, Agrain, where he leads the digitalization department. His work bridges tradition and technology, linking field-level data, satellite tools, and on-the-ground insights to help farmers adapt in real time to both environmental and geopolitical shocks.

Agrain manages over 500 fields across a stretch of more than 1,000 kilometers, from the country’s northern borders to its southern plains. This geographical spread gives Oleksandr a deep understanding of Ukraine’s diverse climatic conditions and the fragile realities of farming in a time of war. He knows the land well, and the people who depend on it.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the difficulties have multiplied. Despite this, Oleksandr remains a forward-looking innovator. Under his guidance, Agrain began shifting toward regenerative agriculture a few years ago. 

“We always tried to be ahead of the market, and we realized in 2020 that we need to change something, that we can be more effective and more ecological,” he explains. Since then, Oleksandr’s team has begun to implement a range of advanced technologies in an ever-evolving process.

He sees regenerative agriculture and carbon finance as tools not just for survival, but also for sovereignty and renewal: a way to keep farming, rebuild communities, and protect the future. “I want Ukraine to have the best quality of soil, so that we always yield a great harvest and can live in a healthy world,” he says.

And Oleksandr is not alone. Agreena is helping farmers across 20 countries adapt to climate and market pressures through the AgreenaCarbon program. The AgreenaCarbon Project (Verra Project 4022), which is registered with Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, currently encompasses farming activities in ten of these countries. Together, these farmers form a growing network committed to regenerative practices that, when backed by carbon finance, can restore soils and strengthen livelihoods throughout Europe.

Headquartered in Denmark, Agreena powers the transition to regenerative agriculture and operates Europe’s leading soil carbon program, working with thousands of farmers across 4.5 million hectares in 20 markets.

What began with a handful of early adopters has grown into one of the largest soil carbon programs in the world, supporting farmers from the UK to Ukraine in building more sustainable, resilient agricultural systems.

At its heart, Agreena’s approach encourages the uptake of regenerative agricultural practices such as reduced tillage, cover cropping, and diversified crop rotations, all designed to improve soil health and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The AgreenaCarbon program is built to be intuitive for farmers while delivering the transparency and credibility that buyers in the voluntary carbon market demand. Agreena guides farmers through each step: from establishing a baseline to mapping fields, adopting new practices, and verifying results. Every year, it captures hundreds of data points per field. 

“Whether you have 20 hectares or 50,000, the process is the same,” says Agreena CEO Simon Haldrup. “We built it to be fair, transparent, and scalable, so every farmer can participate.”

Carbon Finance from a Farmer’s Point of View

Farmers onboarding with Agreena provide field data to establish a baseline for emissions and soil carbon. With the support of digital measurement, reporting, and verification (dMRV), Agreena can track the field regenerative agriculture practices over time.

“Every year is a new harvest year,” explains Simon, “so at the end of each year, we are capturing what practices are being implemented on each field, we are verifying that using third-party validation/verification bodies, and we are also issuing carbon credits onto the voluntary carbon market and providing a new revenue stream back to the farmers.” 

For each verified tonne of CO₂ their regenerative agricultural practices have reduced or removed and stored in the soil, a carbon credit is issued. The program is designed so that farmers can receive up to 85% of the value generated from the sale of their carbon credits, and they retain full choice over how those outcomes are distributed and used, which enables them to reinvest in equipment, expand regenerative practices, and steadily improve soil health.

In Oleksandr’s case, this financing helped his team invest in a direct-seeding machine, a critical tool for implementing low-till practices that reduce soil disturbance and emissions. 

Most of all, it was important for Agreena to implement a system that would work for the farmers. “Farmers are used to investing up front and getting paid at harvest,” Simon explains. “We modeled carbon finance around that logic. It had to make sense from a farmer’s point of view.”

A Standard Farmers and Buyers Can Trust 

Behind each credit is a rigorous process. Agreena’s work is verified under Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, using VCS Methodology VM0042 Improved Agricultural Land Management.  

As Simon explains, “Verra is one of the guardrails that gives this work integrity. Without it, there’s no trust, and no scale.”

VM0042 is also under assessment for the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market’s (ICVCM) Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) label, a global benchmark for high-integrity credits. 

“This methodology was designed to make sure that emission reductions are real, measurable, and additional,” says Roberta McDonald, Agreena’s head of program. “It was critical for us to work with a standard that would meet the highest expectations for farmers, for buyers, and for the planet.” 

Roberta grew up surrounded by farmers in central Ireland, an experience that, as she puts it, “played a massive role in why I do what I do today.” That background gives her a grounded perspective on the challenges farmers face and the practical realities of agricultural change. 

Today, she helps bridge that field-level understanding with market expectations, ensuring that every credit issued not only meets the highest technical standards, but also supports real change on the ground. Her work reflects Agreena’s broader commitment to building a system where climate finance serves both people and the planet.

A Scalable Solution

Agriculture is both vulnerable to climate change and a significant contributor to the problem. Around the world, farmers are under growing pressure to reduce emissions, protect soil, and adapt to extreme and unpredictable weather. Many farmers can’t afford to make the significant shifts required for the transition to regenerative agriculture without financial support or clear incentives. Adopting regenerative agriculture means taking risks and investing in new equipment, changing long-held practices, and waiting years for the soil and the balance sheet to reflect those changes. 

Across the EU, regulatory pressure is mounting. The European Green Deal and related policies like the Farm to Fork Strategy are pushing for steep emissions cuts in agriculture, alongside targets for soil restoration and sustainable food systems. Yet meeting those goals depends on farmers having the tools, infrastructure, and financial runway to transition, and that’s especially challenging in regions where margins are tight and weather risks are rising. 

As Europe ramps up its climate ambitions, Agreena offers a scalable way to connect on-the-ground agricultural change with global climate finance. By linking climate-smart practices to verified carbon credits, the program enables farmers to reduce their environmental impact while generating new income. Soil carbon is a high-potential category because it delivers tangible, near-term climate impact at scale, complementing longer-term decarbonization efforts. It’s a model built on farmer-led implementation, field-level data, and rigorous verification, ensuring that change is not only possible, but profitable.

Sustainable Farming Across Generations

Change is also taking place in the fens of eastern England, where three generations of the Gent family are working together to adapt. 

Second-generation farmer Tony Gent works alongside his son, Edward, and grandson, Thomas, on land that the family has farmed for over 60 years. “We’re three generations that think alike, and on lots of farms, that’s very rare,” says Tony.

With Agreena’s carbon finance support, the Gent family was able to spread risk and generate new income. For them, carbon credits became a bridge between tradition and innovation, allowing three generations to carry the family farm forward while cutting emissions.

Together, the Gent family has worked to bring regenerative practices to their farm.

“Soil carbon is a big, big opportunity,” says Thomas. “Soil is one of the largest carbon sinks on earth. We can add that carbon back to the soil by implementing these practices.” 

According to Edward, Agreena’s support has made the transition much less daunting. “You can get carbon credits for the soil absorbing more of the carbon and growing cover crops,” he explains. “It spreads your risk, and it does help to have another income stream on the farm.”

Since transitioning, the Gent family has benefited from this revenue source while reducing carbon emissions and storing more carbon in their soil.

“I saw the reality that our soils were storing more carbon than they used to. I also saw the opportunity that more farmers could do this,” says Thomas. “Once people really start to understand the benefits of this in their farming system and how it works for their business, people don’t go back.”

Meanwhile, in Denmark, ninth-generation farmer Niels Hansen is the latest member of his family to grow traditional crops like wheat, barley, oats, and fava beans. 

But after so many generations of implementing traditional farming practices, he says, “I realized over time that nature is not happy with that kind of farming. It’s dying out. When we use chemicals and fertilizer, then we are not allowing the microbiology to do the work in the field.”

Now, he practices regenerative farming by growing cover crops that feed the soil and help his fields flourish. 

“It is a very, very big change not to use chemicals,” he says. To manage that risk, Niels relies on Agreena’s support. As he explains, “The better the carbon credits are covering the risk, the more we can do and the faster [the transition] will go.” For him, carbon finance isn’t abstract—it’s the mechanism that makes a transition away from chemicals possible. 

“I’m joining Agreena because that’s the only company I find that is doing something that will help me cover the risk of doing that kind of farming,” says Niels. 

Niels farms for the planet as well as for his three children. “I hope they will continue the tradition,” he says. “I had to do something to make sure the next generations will be able to farm the land here as well.”

From Ukraine’s fertile soils to England’s family farms to Denmark’s centuries-old fields, farmers are demonstrating what’s possible—and Agreena has ambitious goals of scaling its work even further.

“We want to create lunar-scale impact, something you could see from the moon,” says Simon. With plans to expand into North America, Latin America, and Asia, the company hopes to help transition a meaningful share of the world’s 4 billion hectares of farmland. 

“This isn’t about building a company,” he emphasizes. “It’s about enabling a future: one where farmers are the climate heroes.”

Verra's Perspective

Regenerative agriculture is emerging as one of the most promising frontiers in climate action—especially when paired with high-integrity carbon finance. Projects using VM0042 demonstrate how improved agricultural practices can deliver measurable emission reductions and real benefits for farmers and communities. It’s encouraging to see these approaches being adopted in diverse contexts, in Ukraine and across Europe, with the kind of rigor, scale, and field-level insight that this moment demands.

Viridiana Alcantara

Manager, agriculture innovation | Verra

Client Perspective

At Agreena, we believe that soil carbon is one of the most powerful and immediate opportunities to address climate change. Verra’s rigorous standards and transparent methodologies give confidence that agricultural climate projects can deliver real, measurable outcomes. By verifying soil carbon projects, Verra empowers farmers and nature-based solutions to drive progress towards a more sustainable future. Their work is instrumental in making regenerative agriculture a credible, scalable solution for both people and the planet.

Simon Haldrup

Co-founder and CEO | Agreena