Europe needs more research and innovation for climate-smart agriculture

Prof Guy Ziv from the University of Leeds, along with Ellen Bulten, MSc, from Wageningen University and Research, argues that Europe must invest more in research and innovation for climate-smart agriculture

The European Green Deal sets out an ambitious roadmap towards a climate- neutral European economy by 2050. At the heart of this transition is the ‘Fit for 55’ package, introduced to implement the EU Climate Law and deliver a reduction of at least 55% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990. Achieving these ambitions will require action across all sectors.

Agriculture, in particular, plays a crucial role because it simultaneously contributes significantly to climate change through emissions of CO2, CH4, and N2O, while also holding substantial potential to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Reducing agricultural emissions and enhancing the sequestration of atmospheric carbon in soils and biomass are among the most cost-effective pathways for mitigating climate change and supporting Europe’s transition to net-zero and even ‘negative’ emissions.

Climate-smart agriculture

Climate-smart agriculture is an often- suggested framework to address climate challenges in agriculture. It offers an integrative, whole-farming system approach to respond effectively to climate change by integrating three dimensions of sustainable development, economic, social, and environmental, into one approach. As defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2013), climate-smart agriculture is about 1) sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes; 2) adapting and building resilience to climate change; and 3) reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions, where possible.

Research and innovation (R&I) play a crucial role in accelerating the transition to climate-smart farming systems. R&I enables the development, testing and scaling of climate-smart solutions, overcoming barriers and uncovering new market opportunities. Within the agricultural discipline, agricultural Experimental Research Stations (ERS) play an important role in R&I. Across Europe, many ERS, some with origins dating back to the 19th century, continue to serve as central places for advancing agricultural knowledge and innovation.

Typically linked to agricultural universities or applied research institutes, ERS works in collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders where researchers cooperate with farmers, value chain partners, advisors, and extension agents. Given their central role in their respective Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS), ERS are centrally positioned to develop, test, and disseminate climate-smart practices as well as to facilitate their practical uptake by farmers. ERS are, therefore, essential for driving the transition to climate- smart agriculture.

The history and future of agricultural R&I

Agricultural R&I has a long history. Early efforts focused mainly on agronomy and improving yields and animal genetics, followed by the emergence of concepts such as sustainable intensification (producing more with fewer resources) and, more recently, organic farming, agroecology, and regenerative agriculture, emphasising the need to bring commercial food production closer to its ‘working with nature’ roots.

At the same time, many have proposed using agricultural soils to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, filling the ‘gap’ in soil organic carbon we created through our modern, intensive, and chemicals-based food system. Initiatives such as Carbon Farming, promoted by the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF), aim to provide financial incentives for farmers to manage their land in ways that sequester carbon or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions back into the atmosphere.

Compared to the abovementioned fields of agricultural R&I, climate-smart agriculture research in Europe is still finding its way. Most of the funding and R&I efforts have primarily focused on aspects such as emissions reductions, carbon sequestration, or productivity. Fewer studies address all three core pillars of climate-smart agriculture (mitigation, adaptation, and productivity) in an integrated way. This is especially true for climate adaptation, where research is primarily focused on the Global South, where the impact of climate change is currently more noticeable compared to in Europe.

There is a lack of a comprehensive methodology for monitoring, testing, and evaluating climate-smart practices, tools, and services, and a clear need to improve transparency and trust in ‘carbon calculators’ proposed (or required by food chain actors) to farmers and growers. Particularly for climate adaptation, there is a lack of agreed quantitative indicators to track progress, a challenge that featured at the last COP meeting in Belém, Brazil.

Climate-smart solutions are complex

Current research underappreciates the complexity of climate-smart solutions. Contemporary research tends to focus, e.g., on a few crops and/or adaptation or mitigation measures. This is most often the result of practical limitations such as resources, space, and the paradigm of factorial design and block experiments, where all combinations are trialled with repetition. In contrast, most farmers and advisors of climate- smart agriculture will combine multiple measures on the same fields, either as part of a multi-annual rotation or within the same cropping cycle. While research acknowledges that combining measures is not just the sum of its parts, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the efficacy of holistic whole-farm transitions.

Furthermore, given the strong influence of land history, management practice and pedoclimatic (soil and climate) context, we need multiple ERS across Europe to study how such climate- smart agricultural systems function, and what are generalisable and transferable lessons on the interactions, synergies and trade-offs between different measures at the farm scale.

The way forward for climate-smart agriculture

In response to Europe’s ambitious climate goals, the European Commission supported two climate projects as part of the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. These two projects, Climate Smart Demo and Climate Smart Advisors, bring together 1,500 farmers and 1,500 advisors. In 2025, the third pillar of this initiative was completed with a new project called Climate Smart Research (CSR). CSR set up a European-wide network of 29 agricultural ERS linked to applied research institutes and universities, involving 26 countries and covering all European pedoclimatic zones and agricultural sectors. The network embraces a multi-actor approach by gathering all relevant actors in the AKIS around every partner ERS and involving them in agenda setting for research and innovation, and evaluating potential solutions and approaches for climate-smart agriculture.

More support for R&I will be necessary to transition Europe to climate-smart agriculture. Sectors such as permanent crops and horticulture also need to be considered. We still lack an inclusive framework that brings together private funding from agribusinesses (e.g., for carbon farming), financial sector backing (e.g., for climate resilience), science-based evidence on cost reductions, socio-economic impacts, and efficiency improvements from whole-farm transitions, and our impact on biodiversity, such as farmland birds and insects. Supporting agricultural R&I in ERS will be pivotal in the coming decades to achieve a climate-smart (ideally climate-neutral) future for Europe’s food system.