Imperatives and Opportunities for Enhancing Soil Health.

A focus on enhancing the health of our nation’s soils allows us to consider conservation practices and systems that simultaneously improve water quality, increase soil water availability, enhance resilience to extreme weather, enhance nutrient cycling, increase carbon sequestration, provide wildlife habitat, enhance rural economic opportunity, and address rising food production needs on a shrinking available land base.  Consequently, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has developed and launched an integrated campaign to increase the adoption of Soil Health Management Systems among America’s farmers and ranchers.  Specific focus areas include: ensuring the scientific basis for soil health recommendations; training the USDA workforce and partners; developing tools for assessing soil health status and enhancing soil water holding capacity; aligning competitive grant priorities to address demonstration and evaluation needs; leveraging the national network of NRCS Plant Materials Centers for cover crop evaluation and training opportunities; partnering with multiple entities; and providing partner resources and other materials through an NRCS soil health communications campaign.  Voluntary, financial and technical assistance programs are being used to assist landowners with adopting such soil health-promoting systems.  These systems will provide landowners with significant capacity to enhance soil health, thereby simultaneously addressing some of our nation’s most pressing natural resource and population needs.