Soil Health Management – Challenges and Opportunities in the US.

Over the last decades the critical importance of applying principles of soil biology and interactions between soil biological, physical, and chemical processes toward system-based soil health management, has gained significant recognition and understanding. Widespread adoption of soil health management systems has the potential to result in continental-scale, systemic improvements in environmental factors, farm resilience and productivity, as well as profitability.  Concentrated efforts to improve soil health will thus provide significant return on the nation’s conservation investment. Identifying methods to implement economically viable and effective soil health management systems that are adapted to the nation’s diverse production systems, soils, and climates comes with many opportunities, as well as challenges. The new NRCS Soil Health Division was initiated to meet these opportunities and challenges, by leveraging resources, skills, technology, and partnership opportunities nationally to facilitate increased science-based soil health management systems implementation. Key goals of the new Soil Health Division include efforts 1) to provide advanced soil health technical training to diverse stakeholders, 2) to collaborate with partners in standardizing and increasing the use of publicly available soil health assessments that leads to result-informed soil health management recommendations, 3) to guide soil health management planning and implementation adapted to local conditions, and 3) to monitor and adapt services and quantify impact for sustained, long-term adoption.