On-farm soil health evaluations: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

I nterest in soil health (or soil quality) by producers, conservationists, environmentalists, agricultural scientists, policy makers, and many other groups has increased exponentially during the past five years. Yet questions remain: can soil health be measured at the field or farm scale, and can that data be used to improve land management decisions and thus help protect, conserve, and restore our fragile soil resources? Our opinion, based on three years of experience through the Soil Health Partnership (SHP), is that the answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes! Recognizing that several other public and private groups are now expressing interest in assessing soil health, our goals are to (1) summarize several of the SHP lessons learned during the past three years, (2) provide guidelines for future on-farm soil health studies, and (3) share some of our preliminary soil health assessment findings. EVOLUTION OF THE SOIL HEALTH PARTNERSHIP The SHP is a farmer-led initiative of the National Corn Growers Association developed in 2014 with financial and technical support from Monsanto, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), United Soybean Board, Walton Family Foundation, Midwest Row Crop Collaborative, Environmental Defense Fund, and Nature Conservancy. The SHP defines soil health as…