It may be possible to succeed in
some businesses without trying, but that’s certainly not going to work for
agriculture. To make a profit producing food,
fiber and fuel, you must put in a lot of hard work, and you must have a
strategy. And part of your efforts should
involve maintaining and improving the health of your soil.
As I’ve noted before, soil health
is not just a simple matter of measuring the levels of nitrogen, phosphorous
and potassium. There’s more to it, like
water holding capacity, organic matter and micronutrients. And those components are tougher to measure.
But we’ve got some well-qualified
experts wrestling with this issue so that everyone in agriculture can
benefit. The Soil Renaissance initiative of the Farm Foundation, NFP and The
Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation is focusing on soil health to ensure that we
find ways to enhance this critical resource.
Just this week at the 6th World Congress
on Conservation Agriculture in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the group announced
a strategic plan that offers a cohesive and comprehensive approach to advancing
soil health. I’m delighted to be part of
that process, which drew on the recommendations of thought leaders in
production agriculture, agribusiness, the academic community, NGOs and
government agencies.
Our goal is to increase awareness
of the importance of soil health as a component of our natural resources and to
encourage landowners and others to make soil health an essential consideration
in land use decisions. Over the past
year, I’ve been emphasizing sustainability and maximizing resources, including
the land itself through planting cover crops and double cropping. Now we have a broad, national strategy to help
us grapple with some of the more challenging aspects of improving soil health.
The Soil Renaissance strategic plan adopts USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation
Service’s definition of soil health: the
continued capacity of the soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that
sustains plants, animals and humans.
According to the plan, building soil health involves four essentials: measurement, economics, research and
education.
Measurement includes
incorporating soil health measures into standardized soil health tests that are
readily available, affordable and commercially viable. Economic considerations are also
important: quantifying the effects of
soil health on financial risks and returns.
Since research also will play a key role in advancing soil health, we
need to involve the scientific and academic community in the process. In addition, educating the public (and
ourselves) on the importance of soil health is essential.
In early July, the Soil Renaissance will offer a new
website, www.SoilRenaissance.org,
which will enable everyone to track the progress of the project. Input from producers and other stakeholders
is welcome and encouraged. Collaboration
is vital to the success of the effort, and the goal for the Soil Renaissance is to serve as a
central hub to foster understanding of the value of soil health, progress in
identifying ways to improve it, gaps to be filled and ways to help move
forward.
Soil Renaissance is committed to a science-based integrated systems
approach developed through partnership.
The project seeks to be inclusive and representative as well as
transparent and full of common sense.
The goal is purposeful outcomes with measurable impacts following a
process of continuing evaluation and improvement.
I am personally excited about
this effort. All of us who work the land
know that the soil is our most valuable resource. It’s easy to take for granted as we worry
about excessive or insufficient rainfall, rising or falling temperatures and
spiraling or sinking prices. Working
together, I believe we can find a way to effectively measure soil health,
improve it and benefit from greater productivity. That will be a blessing to us as individual
producers, to our national economy and to hungry people around the world.
About the author: Bruce I. Knight, Principal, Strategic
Conservation Solutions, was the Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory
Programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 2006 to 2009. From
2002 to 2006, Knight served as Chief of Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The South Dakota native worked on Capitol Hill for Senate Majority Leader Bob
Dole, Rep. Fred Grandy, Iowa, and Sen. James Abdnor, South Dakota. In addition,
Knight served as vice president for public policy for the National Corn Growers
Association and also worked for the National Association of Wheat Growers. A
third-generation rancher and farmer and lifelong conservationist, Knight
operates a diversified grain and cattle operation using no-till and rest
rotation grazing systems
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