Soil Health Institute Appoints New Board

Joanna Schroeder

soil-healthThe Soil Health Institute has appointed its first ever board of directors of which features representatives of all areas of farming and agricultural practices along with four full-time farmers. The Institute expects to ultimately add an additional nine directors with six of those being farmers/ranchers. The new board of directors includes:

  • Bill Buckner, President/CEO, The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation
  • Neil Conklin, Ph.D., President, Farm Foundation, NFP
  • Daniel DeSutter, President, DeSutter Farms
  • William Flory, President, Flory Farms
  • Jim Gulliford, Executive Director, Soil and Water Conservation Society
  • Jerry Hatfield, Ph.D., Laboratory Director, National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment
  • Diana Jerkins, Ph.D., Research Director, Organic Farming Research Foundation
  • Bruce I. Knight, Principal/Founder, Strategic Conservation Solutions, LLC
  • Andrew W. LaVigne, President/CEO, American Seed Trade Association
  • Klass Martens, Owner, Lakeview Organic Grain
  • V. Larkin Martin, Martin Farm
  • Lara Beal Moody, P.E., Senior Director of Stewardship and Sustainability, The Fertilizer Institute
  • Jay Vroom, President/CEO, CropLife America
  • Wayne Honeycutt, President/CEO, Soil Health Institute

“Ensuring we have healthy soils is one of the most important, yet challenging, jobs of our time,” said Bill Buckner, chairman of the board. “To accomplish this critical goal, we brought together leaders from across the agriculture sector. Most importantly, this board is comprised of a diverse mix of farmers and ranchers, who are experiencing the critical nature of keeping our soils healthy.”

Board member V. Larkin Martin, a row crop farmer from Northern Alabama, said of being selected for the board, “Farmers have to live with the risks of variable weather conditions and variable soils. We can’t control the weather, but we can control how we take care of our soil. We would benefit from having more information about soil health in general, as well as practical information about how it can be improved through farmer practices. The Soil Health Institute’s vision is to go beyond simply measuring the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium in our soil, but to understand the importance of organic matter, microbial interactions and more. We need the Institute to help identify and coordinate this research and transfer that insight to farmers in a useful format, so we can make the best possible decisions for the land.”

Ag Groups, Soil