Is the pressure to reduce emissions shifting to agriculture?

In July 2026, news coverage by organisations including MTK and Helsingin Sanomat discussed the European Commission’s proposal to ease the EU Emissions Trading System. One concern raised in the discussion was that easing emissions trading could shift a greater share of the pressure to reduce emissions onto other sectors, including agriculture and land use.

For agriculture and land use, this could mean:

• Stricter requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• Greater expectations for increasing soil carbon sequestration
• Growing pressure to strengthen forest carbon sinks
• Increasing needs for emissions measurement and reporting.

Climate change is already an economic risk

Recent weather events demonstrate that the impacts of climate change are no longer just long-term projections. They are already affecting agricultural production and its economic value.

According to the Financial Times, the June heatwave in Europe reduced the estimated value of the grain harvest by approximately €2 billion.

As weather variability intensifies, increasingly accurate data is needed to assess both climate risks and the impacts of different farming practices.

Reliable data can help assess:

• Greenhouse gas emissions from production
• Soil carbon sequestration
• The climate impacts of different farming practices
• The vulnerability of agricultural production to changing climate conditions.

Reducing emissions, strengthening carbon sequestration and adapting to climate change are closely interconnected. Reliable measurement is essential for making effective and cost-efficient decisions across the food value chain.

Agricultural emissions must be measured without creating an unreasonable burden

Land-use emissions account for a significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions, making the sector an important part of climate change mitigation.

Agriculture in particular needs practical solutions that enable emissions to be calculated reliably without creating significant additional work for farmers. Many food companies also have a role to play in both reducing agricultural emissions and strengthening forest carbon sinks, for example through the forest areas they own.

Bringing primary data directly into corporate emissions calculations

Biocode has integrated with Finnish farm planning software, allowing data on farming activities to be used automatically in life cycle assessments.

These integrations make it possible to:

• Bring primary farming data directly into emissions calculations
• Reduce the need for manual data collection
• Connect primary production data with corporate emissions accounting
• Perform consistent calculations even across large volumes of production data

Currently, the fossil carbon footprint of field crops can be calculated reliably. In the autumn, Biocode will also publish an updated calculation methodology aligned with the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Guidance.

The new methodology will expand the assessment to cover companies’ land-use emissions and enable the evaluation of land-use pressure generated by business activities (land occupation).

Who will ultimately be responsible for reducing emissions?

Responsibility for the environmental impacts of supply chains is likely to increase in the coming years. The key question is how that responsibility will be shared across the food value chain.

If emissions trading is eased in traditional sectors while agriculture is expected to deliver an increasing share of emissions reductions, farmers could face growing demands related to:

• Emissions measurement
• Environmental reporting
• Providing additional data to supply chain partners
• Investments in emissions reduction measures.

The risk is that responsibility is shifted disproportionately towards primary producers without providing them with corresponding tools or incentives, while regulation is eased elsewhere in the value chain.

Data collection and reporting should therefore not create an unreasonable burden for farmers. Instead, the required information should be collected as automatically as possible from existing systems and production data.

Climate action must be based on measured data

At Biocode, we see every day how committed companies are to measuring, reporting and reducing their emissions.

We want to continue this work together with our customers by providing solutions that are:

• Scientifically reliable
• Fair to all parties across the food value chain
• Cost-effective to implement
• As automated as possible

This way, climate action can be based on measured data, emissions reductions can be targeted where they have the greatest impact, and both farmers and the food value chain as a whole can be supported in their transition towards more sustainable production.