A Grassroots Approach to Integrating Soil Health Metrics into Farm Management Decisions: The Role of Conservation Districts.

Managing agricultural lands for soil health requires a systems-based farm management approach that takes into consideration biological, physical and chemical soil properties in decision-making processes. However, integrating soil health metrics into decision-making requires collaboration between farm managers, the research community, and other key stakeholders in order to put theory into practice.  Conservation Districts, directed by locally elected conservation district boards, are positioned to bring together interested and necessary stakeholders to address local soil health challenges in this manner. The Latah Soil and Water Conservation District (Latah SWCD), located in Northern Idaho, is developing a program that coordinates science based support services  to help growers evaluate practices aimed to manage for soil health and productivity in Palouse dryland cropping systems.  The approach is process oriented, with the intent to strengthen the abilities of regional growers to understand and solve on-farm soil health issues. To achieve this goal, the Latah SWCD is focusing program development within the framework of four main objectives, to: facilitate learning; measure and interpret soil health characteristics; support on-farm, grower-based research and evaluation of soil health; and build conservation partnerships to improve soil health. This model encourages grower innovation in determining management practices that will maintain or improve soil health, while providing research support and feedback to the public and private sectors that are necessary to support change. Building local expertise and conservation partnerships in soil health will also strengthen regional and national efforts to improve soil health management at the farm scale.