Team

The CAFAMORE consortium is built on a multi-actor approach, comprising experts from research (soil science, remote sensing, agronomy, economics, cybersecurity), companies (Earth Observation service providers, Carbon Farming scheme developers, soil sampling and analysis, ICT solutions) and farmer organisations, coming from 22 partners across 10 European countries.

We are deeply involved in Carbon Farming research and policy development, with lead scientists from the CRETA project (supporting DG CLIMA in the development of the Carbon Farming methodologies for the CRCF), MARVIC, EJP SOIL, Credible, and many other trailblazing initiatives.Together, we are part of the journey towards sustainable agriculture in Europe, leveraging our knowledge, expertise, and passion in this transformative endeavour.

Coordinator

Jan Peter Lesschen

Wageningen Research

Jan Peter Lesschen is a Senior Researcher on soils and climate at Wageningen Environmental Research. He has a background in soil science and is now focussing on climate change mitigation research in agriculture, mainly focussing on modelling and monitoring aspects.

Project Manager

Jennie van der Kolk

Wageningen Research

Jennie van der Kolk is the project manager of CAFAMORE. She holds an MSc in Environmental Sciences and has extensive experience in coordinating research projects on carbon sequestration and carbon farming in the Netherlands. Previously, she served for many years as chair of the Dutch LULUCF working group. In CAFAMORE, Jennie is responsible for overseeing the daily management and ensuring the successful delivery of the project’s deliverables.

Work packages

WP1

Data collection and harmonisation

WP Lead

Sophie Bontemps

UCLouvain

Sophie Bontemps is a Senior Researcher at the University Catholique of Louvain (Belgium). She has a background in remote sensing. Her work focuses on the development of automated solutions for monitoring agricultural practices using high temporal resolution time series. In CAFAMORE, she will be in charge of collecting, producing and harmonizing Earth Observation, crop and management data to support carbon quantification models.

WP Co-Lead

Fenny van Egmond

Wageningen Research

Fenny van Egmond works at Wageningen Environmental Research and has a background in soil science, soil proximal and remote sensing, soil data standardisation, soil information systems. Her drive is to make the use and acquisition of soil data for better informed decision making easier, more efficient and fit for purpose.

WP2

Building a certification-driven digital infrastructure for CF

WP Lead

Rob Lokers

Wageningen Research

WP Co-Lead

Jan Bauwens

ILVO

Jan Bauwens (PhD) is an IoT specialist at ILVO, where he develops agricultural sensing solutions for mapping soil organic carbon. He brings expertise in end-to-end data management from sensor to cloud. In CAFAMORE, his contribution will be in task 2.2 to develop the common standards and data exchange interfaces (APIs) for a secure and interoperable certification network.

WP3

Developing quantification methods and (standardised) baselines

WP Lead

Greet Ruysschaert

ILVO

Greet Ruysschaert is a soil scientist specialised in soil management and carbon farming. She is coordinator of the EU MARVIC project that develops a framework for designing context-specific MRV systems and is steering member of the Flanders Action platform on CRCF. In CAFAMORE, she will be working on standardised management and baselines and will be coordinating the ILVO team and Belgian pilot.

WP Co-Lead

Eric Ceschia

INRAE

Éric Ceschia, an INRAE Senior Scientist at CESBIO in France, focuses on comparing climate mitigation strategies in agriculture, particularly cropland. He analyzes biogeochemical and biogeophysical contributions to net radiative forcing from changes in agricultural management. Éric employs in-situ observations, remote sensing, and crop modeling to map cropland C budgets and albedo effects at high resolution across large areas, utilizing Sentinel satellite data. He also coordinates the development of soil carbon MRV methods for cropland in several EU projects (ORCaSa, MARVIC).

WP4

Piloting of operational MRV tools

WP Lead

Liisa Kulmala

FMI

Liisa Kulmala is an expert on the exchange of greenhouse gases between ecosystems and the atmosphere. Although she initially focused on forests, her main focus is now on agricultural and urban land use. In CAFAMORE, she will lead the FMI team in developing a parcel-level monitoring approach for carbon farming and piloting the system in Finland.

WP Co-Lead

Cécile Tondriaux

Terranis

Cécile Tondriaux holds a Master degree in Business. She is Business Representative at TerraNIS France and has been managing the sales and marketing team since 2021. She participated in several European projects, elaborating Business models, business plans and identifying end user needs. In CAFAMORE, she will be responsible for coordinating and organizing the workshops to assess end user needs and requirements related to the carbon market and MRV tools.

WP5

Improving 'building blocks' for MRV of Carbon Farming

WP Lead

Axel Don

Thünen Institut

Axel Don is soil scientist and expert on soil carbon management in agriculture. He is deputy director of the Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture and professor at the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany.In CAFAMORE he is developing optimized sampling methods that account for seasonal variability in soil organic carbon stocks and the options to validate carbon changes with satellite data.

WP Co-Lead

Laurent Soreda

Airbus

Laurent Soreda is Project Manager at Airbus Defence and Space. After twenty years in the architecture, development, testing and operations of Space Observation programs, he joined the Geospatial Solutions for Agriculture and Environment department. In CAFAMORE, he will coordinate Airbus' activities dedicated to the development and operation of an EO-based MRV carbon system, and the improvement of associated building blocks.

WP6

Carbon Farming economics and market opportunities

WP Lead

Edouard Lanckriet

Agrosolutions

Edouard Lanckriet is an agronomist and economist. He is the co-director of AGROSOLUTIONS, French engineering consultancy specialized in assessing agriculture’s environmental impact, developing MRV tools and designing new economic models to finance the transition. In CAFAMORE they will collaborate on the technical side: the design of a pilot MRV digital tool for carbon farming in France; and on the politics and economics studies.

WP Co-Lead

Julia Grimault

I4CE

Julia Grimault is the director of the Agriculture and Forestry program at I4CE. She has an expertise on economic tools and public policies contributing to mitigation in the land-use sector, with a specific focus on carbon certification mechanisms. She was part of the team who developed the French “Label Bas Carbone”. Within CAFAMORE, she will work on carbon farming economics and analyzing current and future funding/market opportunities.

WP7

Communication, Dissemination, Networking and Synergies

WP Lead

Leandro Trupp

SAE Innova

Leandro Trupp is a journalist and PhD in Chemistry with over 10 years of experience in research, currently merging science and communication by working as communication officer for several EU Projects related to Carbon Farming and Regenerative Agriculture. In CAFAMORE, he coordinates the multi-actor Working Groups and leads the Communication & Dissemination efforts, creating web, social media, and newsletter content.

WP Co-Lead

Esther Dalkmann

Climate Farmers

Esther Dalkmann brings expertise in organisational development, project management, and marketing with a focus on driving systems change in the food sector towards regeneration. Within CAFAMORE, she contributes to WP7 by supporting the creation and coordination of multi-actor working groups and developing shared approaches for communication, dissemination, and stakeholder engagement across the project.

Project partners