eAgronom co-founder on why Scope 3 ‘fails at the farm gate’ and what food companies still don’t understand

There is a paradox at the heart of food system decarbonisation. So argues Kristjan Luha, co-founder and CCO of eAgronom.

He estimates farming accounts for 70-90% of a typical food company’s carbon footprint. “Yet farmers are rarely integrated into corporate climate strategies in a practical way,” he tells AgNavigator.

This disconnect is not due to a lack of ambition. Rather, it reflects a fundamental flaw in how Scope 3 programmes are designed and implemented,

“Many Scope 3 programmes fail because they are designed backwards,” he says. “They start from the corporate reporting requirement, not from the farm reality.”

It is a pattern Luha says he sees repeatedly: well-intentioned initiatives that never translate into meaningful change on the ground.

Designed for reporting, not for farms

At the core of the problem is a mismatch between what companies need to report and what farmers need to operate.

From a corporate perspective, the asks are logical. “A company may know it needs lower emissions factors, better primary data or credible claims for its sustainability report,” he says. “But by the time that request reaches the farmer, it often looks like another survey, another audit, another administrative burden with unclear upside.”

Farmers are asked to share sensitive operational data, change practices, and take on agronomic risk. Yet the benefits are often too vague or too short-term to justify participation.

This is where many programmes break down long before they ever reach the field.

The structural gap between farm and brand

The other problem is that food supply chains are “messy”.

Even when companies want to engage farmers directly, supply chain complexity gets in the way.

“Food companies are often several steps removed from the farm,” Luha explains. Between farm and fork sit layers of intermediaries including traders, cooperatives, processors and storage and logistics operators.

Meanwhile, commodities are aggregated, mixed, stored, processed and traded. “So a programme that looks neat in a corporate spreadsheet can become very difficult once you try to connect it to real fields, real rotations and real farmers,” he says.

The result is a paradox: the largest source of emissions is also the part of the value chain companies understand and control the least.

Three disconnects that derail Scope 3 programmes

One of the biggest challenges is simply when programmes are introduced.

“Corporate targets run on reporting cycles; farms run on agronomic cycles,” Luha says.

If a farmer is approached during harvest, after planting decisions are made or outside the window for adopting new practices, the opportunity is effectively lost for the year.

“Cover crops, reduced tillage, fertiliser optimisation and rotations all have specific windows,” he adds. “You cannot just fit them into a sustainability report after the fact.”

Food companies also typically think in terms of individual crops: wheat, barley, oats. Farmers think in terms of whole systems.

“Regenerative agriculture does not happen crop by crop,” Luha explains. “It happens across the rotation.”

If a company incentivises emissions reductions in one crop, but the required practices affect previous crops, soil preparation and multi-year rotations, the farmer is left absorbing the cost and risk.

Compliance vs opportunity

Perhaps the most critical gap is in incentives.

“Many companies want data, but farmers need a reason to provide it,” Luha says. “Many companies want impact, but farmers need support to deliver it.”

Too often, he complains, programmes feel like compliance requirements pushed down the supply chain, rather than genuine commercial opportunities.

What effective farmer engagement actually looks like

According to Luha, successful programmes are built around three pillars: financial value, agronomic value and control.

Financial value can mean practice- or outcome-based payments, premiums for lower-emission crops, carbon credit revenue and access to better financing.

Agronomic value equates to improved soil structure and water retention, greater resilience to climate variability and advisory support such as field trials and peer learning.

“Money alone is not enough if the programme creates too much complexity or risk,” Luha cautions.

Equally, agronomic support is critical: “The farmer should not be left alone with a PDF and a target.”

In terms of control, “farmers need to know what data is being collected, who can access it, what claims are being made, and whether they are being fairly compensated.”

From data collection to implementation

One of the most persistent misconceptions is that Scope 3 is fundamentally a data challenge.

In reality, it is an implementation challenge.

“At eAgronom, we always say: Scope 3 starts with trust,” Luha says.

“Before you talk about emissions reductions, you need to make participation practical.”

That trust depends on making participation practical with low administrative burden, clear incentives, farmer consent, proper data governance, and agronomic support.

Without this, Luha warns that programmes remain stuck at the level of sustainability teams and “never turning into real farm-level change”.

eAgronom’s platform, which works with over 3,500 farms across 14 countries, aims to bridge this gap by automating farm data collection and enabling more accurate measurement of emissions and carbon removals.

A system not built for farmers

Despite their central role, farmers have historically been poorly integrated into corporate sustainability strategies.

Luha points to three root causes. Most brands lack direct relationships with farmers. Farming emissions are complex, dynamic and difficult to capture through simple questionnaires. Procurement, meanwhile, has traditionally prioritised volume, quality and price. “Sustainability has often sat separately from buying decisions,” Luha says.

The coming shift: from ambition to evidence

New regulatory frameworks in Europe are accelerating the need for credible, farm-level data.

“The rules are moving from broad ambition toward evidence,” Luha says.

Companies will increasingly need to demonstrate traceability, verification (MRV), farmer consent and protection against double counting.

This raises both the importance and the influence of farmers.

“They will no longer be seen only as suppliers of commodities,” Luha says, “but as holders of critical sustainability data and key decision-makers behind climate impact.”

Who risks falling behind?

Those most exposed are companies still relying on generic emission factors, supplier surveys and satellite-only estimates, he cautions, without robust farm-level validation or engagement models.

At the same time, farmers face risks around data ownership, claims rights and fair compensation – highlighting the need for transparent and neutral infrastructure.

From extractive reporting to shared implementation

Ultimately, Luha argues that the industry must rethink its approach to partnerships.

“A weak partnership says: ‘Give us your data so we can report our footprint,’” he says.

“A strong partnership says: ‘Let’s build a programme that reduces emissions, strengthens resilience, and creates value for both sides.’”

That shift requires farmer-centred incentives, credible MRV systems and collaboration across supply chains.

“The opportunity is huge,” Luha says, “but the next phase of Scope 3 will reward companies that can demonstrate real farm-level change, not just better reporting.”