Are carbon markets the best way to finance regenerative transition?

It’s been over a year now since Climate Farmers let go of its Carbon credit program, and yet I know that many people who’ve been following our company don’t know the full story about how we got started in the carbon market, why we let it go, and what we’re continuing to do to help improve carbon markets to assist farmers in their transition to regenerative management. Today I’m going to fix that as my dear friend and colleague Esther Dalkman takes us on a journey through the history of our former carbon credit program and what we’re doing with 5 years of learnings from trying to use the carbon market to finance regenerative agriculture.   Along the way we’ll hear from the former managing director of Climate Farmers, Ivo Degn, about his learnings and observations of the wider carbon market, as well as Joao Martins who used to be our business lead and is now leading the new company Terra Madre which is continuing our carbon credit legacy as they work with farmers in Portugal to access transition finance for a wide variety of ecosystem services beyond carbon. By the end we’ll talk about what it would take for the carbon market to adapt to the needs of real farmers and we’ll get candid advice on what farmers should know  if they’re considering participating in a credit program before they sign up.