Resilient Agriculture Portfolio: Serbia ReAgro

Serbia ReAgro is a collaborative landscape initiative led by EIT Food to support the transition towards regenerative, resilient and economically viable agriculture in Serbia. Initially focused on farms in Vojvodina, the project brings together farmers, food companies, technical specialists, research organisations and local partners to strengthen agricultural resilience through coordinated farmer support, soil assessment, Monitoring, Reporting and Verification, or MRV, and value-chain collaboration.

The project responds to a core challenge facing European agriculture: environmental outcomes, farmer livelihoods and supply-chain resilience cannot be addressed in isolation. Serbia REagro therefore uses a landscape approach, connecting farm-level transition plans with shared measurement methods, corporate sustainability needs and wider regional collaboration.

EIT Food brings an interoperable landscape model that provides the common structure for governance, farmer engagement, impact measurement, MRV and collaboration across the value chain. Rather than applying a uniform solution, the model is tailored to the Serbian landscape with the expertise of the project’s MRV and advisory consortium partners. Together, the partners will adapt its indicators, data requirements, advisory services and implementation processes to Serbia’s agricultural systems, pedoclimatic conditions, crop rotations and local farming context. The consortium has also identified the need for an integrated workflow connecting farmer contracting, parcel verification, soil sampling, advisory visits, transition plans, data collection and alignment with relevant agricultural sustainability frameworks. 

Ambition and scale

Serbia ReAgro follows a phased approach, with the ambition to bring additional farmers and hectares into the landscape over successive agricultural cycles. The initial ambition is to engage approximately 11 farms covering around 1,430 hectares, creating the baseline for farmer support, soil assessment and transition planning. The landscape aims to scale progressively and reach approximately 27 farms and 3,750 hectares by 2028. 

The initial implementation period runs to the end of 2028. Activities undertaken during the 2026 baseline phase are intended to prepare participating farms for the first agricultural cycle implementing agreed regenerative practices in 2027, followed by continued monitoring, learning and improvement. 

Through this progressive expansion, Serbia ReAgro aims to create a practical and scalable model through which regenerative practices can be planned, introduced, monitored and improved over successive agricultural cycles. The evidence generated will support farmers, project partners, corporate sustainability teams and the wider development of resilient agricultural value chains in Serbia.

Five impact areas

Serbia REagro organises its impact framework around five interconnected areas:

1. Climate: supporting the reduction of agricultural greenhouse-gas emissions, the responsible quantification of removals and improvements in the resilience of farming systems.
2. Soil health: improving the understanding and management of soil organic carbon, nutrients, fertility, structure and the capacity of soils to sustain productive agriculture.
3. Biodiversity: supporting more diverse and resilient agricultural ecosystems through appropriate practices, crop rotations and landscape features.
4. Water: improving water stewardship, including the efficient use of water and a better understanding of water-related risks and outcomes.
5. Socioeconomic performance: considering the economic viability of the transition, farmer participation and the wider social and value-chain conditions needed for long-term change.

The framework brings together the environmental areas used by the SAI Platform Regenerating Together approach with an EIT Food socioeconomic extension. The impact framework and its indicators are being adapted to Serbia by EIT Food and the consortium, taking into account local relevance, corporate reporting needs, practical feasibility and the evidence burden placed on farmers.

Crops and farming systems

The landscape works with the principal arable crops identified for participating farms and their rotations: soybean, sunflower, wheat, maize/corn and sugar beet. Apples are also included within the wider project crop scope, reflecting the diversity of agricultural production systems represented in Vojvodina, including this fruit agroforestry system.

This crop mix requires the project to look beyond a single harvest or commodity. Annual crop changes, multi-year rotations and links between individual land management units and physical supply chains must all be reflected in the project’s monitoring and claims architecture. The approach is therefore being designed around traceable land management units, crop and parcel information, soil baselines, farm data and individual transition plans.

Partnership across the value chain

EIT Food coordinates Serbia REagro in collaboration with Nestlé and Delhaize/Maxi, the project’s corporate partners. Their involvement connects the regenerative transition with the food value chain, including farmer engagement, sourcing relationships and the development of credible sustainability information. 

The implementing consortium brings together complementary Serbian and European capabilities:

• NALED. leading local project management partner;
• Donau Soja;
• University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Agriculture;
• Terra Controlling; and
• Pet Magazine, supporting the consortium’s communications-related work.

Together with EIT Food, Nestlé and Delhaize/Maxi, the consortium combines expertise in landscape coordination, farmer engagement, agronomic advice, MRV, soil analysis, research, field implementation and communications.

The partners are developing an integrated farmer journey. Participating farmers will be supported through onboarding, confirmation of land and crop scope, baseline data collection, soil sampling, farm-level assessment, individual transition planning, implementation support and continued monitoring.

The purpose is not simply to collect data. It is to translate evidence into practical actions suited to each farm while using a common landscape structure that allows progress to be evaluated consistently across participating farms and value chains.

A robust MRV and standards-alignment approach

Monitoring, Reporting and Verification is central to Serbia ReAgro. EIT Food provides the interoperable landscape model and overall framework, while the specialist MRV and advisory consortium partners contribute the technical and local expertise needed to adapt and operationalise it for Serbia.

This collaborative approach will ensure that the model reflects local pedoclimatic conditions, national and regional requirements, crop rotations, farmer capabilities, value-chain relationships and the practical realities of data collection. It will also allow lessons from implementation to be incorporated into the model as the landscape develops.

The project is developing a common architecture for collecting, managing and quality-checking farm, parcel, crop, soil and practice data. This architecture will support individual transition planning and allow environmental and socioeconomic progress to be assessed consistently across the landscape.

The MRV methodology is being developed with reference to relevant corporate and agricultural sustainability frameworks, including:

• SAI Platform Regenerating Together, as a reference for regenerative-agriculture impact areas, practices and indicators;
• the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard and Guidance, referred to in project materials as LSRS/LSRG, for land-sector greenhouse-gas accounting, traceability, crop rotations, allocation and removals;
• the Science Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, in relation to corporate climate targets and Scope 3 reporting needs;
• the GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain Scope 3 framework, particularly Category 1 reporting connected with purchased agricultural goods; and
• the EU Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Certification Framework, where relevant to the treatment of removals and supporting evidence.

The project is working towards alignment with these frameworks. They fulfil different functions, including regenerative-agriculture guidance, greenhouse-gas accounting, corporate target setting and carbon-removal certification. 

The methodology will also address important landscape-level considerations such as crop rotations, benefit allocation, traceability, sourcing relationships, rights to report outcomes and the prevention of double counting. These aspects will be documented and tested as the technical methodology is developed. 

Supporting farmers and building long-term resilience

At farm level, Serbia ReAgro will connect regenerative practices with defined indicators, evidence requirements and monitoring arrangements. Soil information, crop histories, parcel boundaries, management practices and farmer objectives will inform transition plans adapted to local conditions and the needs of participating farms.

The model keeps farmers at the centre of the transition. Farmers will receive coordinated support through advisory services, training, MRV, soil analysis and other project activities. Participation is based on good-faith implementation, cooperation and appropriate data provision rather than a guarantee that an individual farm will achieve a particular yield, profit or environmental result. 

By bringing together farmer knowledge, EIT Food’s landscape model, local delivery capacity, scientific and technical expertise, corporate participation and robust measurement, Serbia ReAgro aims to establish the foundations for a regenerative agriculture landscape capable of delivering value beyond a single farm, crop or supply chain in Serbia.