This week’s Soil Health Summit 2019 with Soil Health Partnership was the largest ever—360 registered attendees made their way to St. Louis to learn and network. A diverse group including farmers, corporations, educators and environmental groups spent two days talking about soil health. The summit provided many takeaway messages and insights of interest. Here are just a few:
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Enthusiasm for learning new sustainability practices and adopting new farm management tools to protect and improve soil is not being slowed by a prolonged downturn in the farm economy. Many farmers, landlords, and others are investing in the long game to assure more sustainable and profitable agriculture.
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SHP outreach is building a diverse coalition of partners from farms all the way to consumers. The program and the network being created is growing rapidly.
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The common interest of proving the latest farming techniques, building healthier soils, cleaner water while maintaining farmer profitability is getting positive attention outside of agriculture, including with elected officials.
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Early in-field research shows no statistically significant yield drag from using cover crops and organic matter is increasing.
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More than 60 percent of the funding for the summit came directly from farmers or through their commodity organizations, like Corn Growers Associations, reflecting a major commitment that bodes well for the future.
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Sponsors like McDonald's, Environmental Defense Fund, Bayer, Cargill, state corn and soybean commodity groups, National Corn Growers, The Nature Conservancy, Corteva, Tyson and others provide more than just funding for a one-time event. They are key partners throughout the year in SHP’s efforts to research, educate and advocate for soil health initiatives, providing a valuable link from farmers to consumers.
COVID-19 Resources
NCGA is taking a series of actions to do our part to help contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and the economic fallout it is creating for corn farmers and our customers. Short term, this means instituting policies to protect the health and safety of our stakeholders and the broader communities we serve. Long term, we’re focused on creating solutions to help corn farmers and our customers recover from the financial impacts of this crisis.
CommonGround
CommonGround is a group of farmers connecting with consumers through conversations about science and research and personal stories about food and misinformation surrounding farming. Supported by the NCGA and state corn organizations.
SHP
The Soil Health Partnership (SHP) is a farmer-led initiative that fosters transformation in agriculture through improved soil health. Administered by NCGA the partnership has more than 220 working farms enrolled in 16 states. SHP’s mission is to utilize science and data to partner with farmers who are adopting conservation agricultural practices that improve the economic and environmental sustainability of the farm.