Carbon Harvest: Soil Restoration, Food Security & Negative Emissions in Global Agriculture

Climate Week NYC 2025

Thursday, 9/25 | 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Cornell Tech – Verizon Executive Education Center
Roosevelt Island, New York City
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Hosts: UN Climate High Level Champions, Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Global agrifood systems produce nearly 30% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and drive significant biodiversity loss. Reducing these emissions is challenging, given economic and food security pressures, but emerging practices like biochar, soil remineralization, and organic soil carbon restoration offer major opportunities to reverse the trend. Together, these approaches could sequester billions of tonnes CO₂e annually by 2050 (BCG) while generating enormous benefits for farmers through higher yields, greater resilience, and new carbon market revenues.

Hosted by Cornell University’s Atkinson Center for Sustainability and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences with the Climate High-Level Champions, this event will bring together practitioners, policymakers, and market innovators to explore how to put these solutions into action, at scale.

Program

• Keynote Presentation: Dr. Gabrielle Walker (Chief Scientist of CUR8 and Co-founder of Rethinking Removals) sets the stage with a big-picture, high-energy exploration of the science, key concepts, and global opportunities shaping agriculture’s role in carbon removal.
• Video Presentation: Benjamin Houlton (Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a professor in the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and of Global Development)
• Dialogue 1: Insights and Reflections on Regional Leadership and Opportunity: Brazil, India, Kenya: This panel will provide insights into three distinct regions—India, Brazil, and Kenya—that hold enormous potential and already host active carbon removal agriculture ecosystems. High-level ecosystem representatives will discuss the history, current landscape, and what scaling potential looks like.
  • Panelists:
    • Fernando Moriya, Chair and Co-Founder, ABREFEN
    • James Mwangi, Founder & CEO, Africa Climate Ventures
    • Asitava Sen, Founder and CEO, Carbon Removal India Alliance (CRIA)
    • Tannis Thorlakson, Program Director, Cascade Climate
• Dialogue 2: Carbon Removal in the Agricultural Value Chain: From Growers to Global Buyers. This panel brings together voices from across the agricultural value chain—from growers pioneering new practices to global buyers shaping procurement strategies—to explore how carbon-removing and soil-enhancing methods can generate value on the farm and in supply chains. Panelists will share how they assess these opportunities within their business and sustainability commitments, and discuss the economic, agronomic, and market factors that influence adoption and scale.
  • Panelists:
    • Meghan Edge, Director of Carbon Demand, Indigo
    • Sparsh Agarwal, Founder, Alt-Carbon
    • Autumn Fox, Global Sustainability Director, Mars
    • Aadith Moorthy, Founder & CEO, Boomitra
• Dialogue 3: Catalyzing New York State’s Carbon Farming Future: Practice, Policy & Partnerships: This panel will examine how leading academic research, farmer choices, innovative startups, solution providers, and comprehensive policies are coming together to create a foundation for action and ambition. The discussion will highlight how this emerging ecosystem supports New York State’s diverse agriculture sector, empowers farmers, and advances the state’s 2050 net-zero targets.
  • Panelists:
    • Jason Dodier, CCO & Co-Founder, Grain Ecosystem
    • Chris Neidl, Carbon Removal Lead, Climate High-Level Champions
    • Bill Hilgendorf, Director of Business Development, NY Carbon
    • Aaron Ristow, New York Senior Agriculture Specialist, American Farmland Trust
    • Yiqi Luo, Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University
    • Brian Steinmuller, Assistant Director, New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets | Division of Land and Water Resources

Additional panelists to be announced prior to the event.