Indiana Dept of Ag Director Stops By #SHPSummit16

Taylor Truckey

ted-mckinney-being-interviewedThe Director of the Indiana State Dept of Agriculture, Ted McKinney, stopped by the Soil Health Summit last week in Indianapolis to show support for the direction of the program.

“[The Soil Health Partnership] is outstanding, primarily because it brings together a lot of different groups to be aligned and focused on a single purpose.

One of the best things that they’re doing, is they are data driven. You have the evidence points to show farmers the benefits of improved soil health. We know what they are; you retain moisture better, and that helps in the case of a drought. It allows for much better drainage in the case of rainfall, which was plentiful in most parts of Indiana in 2015.”

McKinney is proud of those farmers in his state, and across the US, who have already begun to focus on improving soil quality through measurable standards. “We’re the only state that’s measuring the reductions or the retention of sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorous in the soil. We’re very proud of that because we’ve been able to tell the public, it’s working. These practices are working.”

For more from McKinney’s interview: Interview with Ted McKinney, IN Director of Ag

2016 Soil Health Summit Photo Album

Agribusiness, Soil, Soil Health Partnership, Sustainability

Farm Foundation, SHP Share Common Goals

Taylor Truckey

tim-brennanFarm Foundation is one of the supporting partners of the Soil Health Partnership (SHP). While at the Soil Health Summit late last week, Tim Brennan, Farm Foundation, shared why the being a part of the Partnership just makes sense for their organization.

The Farm Foundation started the Soil Renaissance (with the Noble Foundation) a little over two years ago to try and create a movement around soil health. A project like the Soil Health Partnership, one focused on researching the benefits of improving soil quality, are a natural fit for the Farm Foundation.

Brennan elaborated, “What we love about this project is that it’s at the farmer level. Farmers are deeply involved and learning right along with everybody else. The best part is the data. We don’t have enough data to support some of the big ideas in soil health, such as the benefits of cover crops. The longer we stick to this project, the more we will learn.”

Provided by the NRCS, over the next three years the Farm Foundation will use the Conservation and Innovation Grant alongside partners like the SHP to really help farmers develop on-the-ground tools to figure out the real value of these conservation practices. A large part of it will be taking the data they are collecting through the field trials, but Farm Foundation is also focused on creating new models for farmers to use to figure out the benefits, both economic and environmental, more clearly.

For more from Tim’s interview: Interview with Tim Brennan, Farm Foundation

2016 Soil Health Summit Photo Album

cover crops, Farm Foundation, Soil Health Partnership, Sustainability

Iowa Farmer Joins SHP As Demo Farmer

Taylor Truckey

john-maxwellLast year at Commodity Classic, John Maxwell was introduced to the idea of soil health. From there, he became excited about it and signed up to become a demo farmer with the Soil Health Partnership (SHP) to learn how cover crops could impact the soil on his farm.

Years ago, Maxwell originally got into cover crops years ago to feed his cattle and livestock.

With approximately 4000 acres to farm, a robotic dairy milking 250 jersey cows where they also make their own cheese, raising beef cattle and hogs, and have chickens, Maxwell’s operation is definitely unique. They offer tours of their farm operations with over 1500 kids, 1500 visitors from the US, and 3000 foreigners visiting each year. Participating in the SHP project is beneficial for Maxwell, but it’s also beneficial for the Partnership to get one of their research fields in front of a lot of people ready to ask questions.

“Soil Health Partnership has helped me become aware of all the possibilities I can receive from cover crops,” Maxwell explained. “One of the things I’m really interested in is composting. Taking that manure with the carbon, such as the cornstalks,and mixing that together to have a better product to put out on the field at times when it would be most advantageous to the crop.”

Maxwell grows high production corn, typically 250-300 bu/ac, leaving a large amount corn stover in the field. He’s left asking how he can get a really good stand of cover crop with a high density of residue in the field. Maxwell has chosen this as his focus area during his field trials with the Soil Health Partnership.

For more from Maxwell’s interview: Interview with John Maxwell, Iowa Farmer

2016 Soil Health Summit Photo Album

cover crops, Soil, Soil Health Partnership, Sustainability

Zimfo Bytes

Talia Goes

Zimfo Bytes

Zimfo Bytes

Scott Walker Addresses #DairyStrong

Lizzy Schultz

DS16_WalkerPhoto The second annual Dairy Strong conference, held earlier this month in Madison, Wisconsin, began its first full day with an opening address from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Though the Dairy Strong conference is internationally attended and focuses on global collaboration, there is no denying that Wisconsin is one of the dairy industry’s shining stars. Walker’s speech highlighted the value of Wisconsin’s dairy industry, which represents over half of the state’s 80 billion dollar agriculture sector.

“Florida makes a big deal about their oranges, and they should. Oranges contribute 9 billion dollars to Florida’s economy,” Walker said in the address, “but our dairy industry contributes over 40 billion dollars to the economy of Wisconsin annually, and that is something to brag about.”

Walker also addressed a worrisome trend that many agriculture professionals know too well: The demand for quality producers, as well as the necessary food supply, is continuing to increase, and so is the average age of the American farmer.

“It is paramount that we get our youth more involved in agriculture,” he said. “We need to work harder to get the message out to students, at the state’s three agriculture colleges as well as at the K-12 level, about the opportunities that agriculture can offer them.”

Photo courtesy of the Dairy Business Association

Listen to the full address here:
Dairy Strong 2016 Opening Address

Animal Agriculture, Audio, Dairy, Education

SHP Demo Farmers Utilizing AgSolver Technology

Taylor Truckey

dave-muthAgSolver had demo farmers and partner companies excited at the Soil Health Summit last week as they plan on rolling out access to their Profit Zone Manager to the demo farmers this year. Dave Muth, co-founder of AgSolver, spoke with AgWired about what they do and how that will impact the SHP.

“The Soil Health Partnership is certainly working on practices to help improve soil health and working lands. Part of that equation is making sure that we’re leveraging our land resources correctly.”

AgSolver, a young precision ag startup from Ames, IA, is building a concept called precision business planning. AgSolver works to leverage available data (both private and public) to create a precision business plan that will accompany their agronomic plans. Largely, they believe in shifting the conversation to returns rather than revenue. Muth explained how AgSolver’s business management platform would be integrated into the Partnership project.

“One of the key things: when we understand the scale that business performance varies between our fields, there are actually a lot of synergies between economic performance and environmental performance. There is a common perception that environmental performance issues and that economic performance goals are competitive. Once we get down and understand how business varies within our fields, they are actually very synergistic,” Muth said.

As part of the incentives, each demo farmer involved in the Soil Health Partnership can run their farm business through the Profit Zone Manager, AgSolver’s precision business planning process. This also helps collect and organize some precision data and economic analysis within the research trials down to each strip.

To learn about AgSolver and for more from Muth’s interview: Interview with Dave Muth, AgSolver

2016 Soil Health Summit Photo Album

Agribusiness, Markets, Soil, Soil Health Partnership, Sustainability

Latest #FoodD Talks Sustainability at Dairy Strong

Jamie Johansen

Linsley The 2016 Dairy Strong Conference was able to serve as a host for the U. S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance’s (USFRA) latest installment of Food Dialogues, a comprehensive discourse on food production between a panel of food industry experts. This group of panelists was asked to focus discussion around the controversial topic of sustainability.

One panelist was Lauren Linsley, RDN, CD, a dietician manager for the Wisconsin supermarket chain Skogen’s Festival Foods. Lauren’s unique role in the food industry allows her to work and engage directly with consumers. She is responsible for creating innovative nutrition programs for consumers, as well as collaborating with a variety of community groups, including health care systems, schools, government agencies, area businesses, non-profit organizations and universities, to help community members learn ways to shop smarter in the supermarket.

During the panel discussion, she brought up several common misconceptions she hears from consumers in regards to food labels that market their product as “sustainable,” and how that has skewed public perception about the nutritional content of certain foods. She sat down for an interview after the panel, and discussed some of these misconceptions, their consequences, and how she is working to combat them.

“When we’re out in the community we often get questions surrounding the idea that something labeled as organic or wild caught or grass-fed is always more nutritious than something that is conventionally grown, and that is just simply not true,” she said. “An organic apple has the same nutrition profile as an apple that is conventionally grown.”

While these marketing tactics began as a way to promote these niche markets, Lauren explained several negative consequences that have begun to emerge in response to the heavy marketing of organic, grass-fed, and other products that label themselves “sustainable.”

“There are so many marketing claims out there, there are so many documentaries that present false information, and it breeds this fear-based marketing, and it makes people confused,” she said. “A lot of people want to eat healthier, they want to feed their families, they may be trying to do it on a budget, but they simply don’t know how, so our job is really to cut through those marketing claims and find good food to help them feed their families, whether it’s focused on nutrition or financial concerns.”

Listen to my full interview with Lauren here:
Interview with Lauren Linsley, RDN, CD, Festival Foods

Ag Groups, Audio, Dairy, Sustainability, USFRA

Common Ground Grows Food Dialogues

Kelly Marshall

Common Ground 2Before Storm Jonas rolled in over the weekend I had the opportunity to attend the national Common Ground conference in Washington D.C. The event, sponsored by the United Soybean Board and the National Corn Growers Association, was created to help farm women learn how to better communicate with urban women about the safety and security of their food.

“The ideas is that women are the primary grocery shoppers in the country. So we wanted to connect women to women because that is the way we build trust, because they are credible sources of information, and to take women who understand farming, and have conversations about farming and ranching with the non-farm audience,” explains Nancy Kavazanjian, a Farmer Volunteer board member for the United Soybean Board.

Common Ground“The conference here was just about educating [farm women], training them further, about how they can communicate even better. It’s just a great way for us to talk and have a conversation about food,” says the Chairwoman of the Grower Services Action Team at NCGA, Patty Mann.

Listen to the full interview: Interview with Nancy Kavazanjian, United Soybean Board  
Interview with Patty Mann, National Corn Growers Association

Common Ground is funded by checkoff dollars and works in collaboration with Osborn + Barr.  You can join the conversation by following CommonGroundNow on Facebook.

Ag Groups, Events, NCGA, USB

NCGA Celebrates Soil Health Partnership Progress

Taylor Truckey

chris-novak (1)The Soil Health Partnership was initiated by the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and announced at the Commodity Classic just two years ago.

During the Soil Health Summit in Indianapolis last week, NCGA CEO Chris Novak gave us an update on the progress of the Partnership and the impact that it has had within the industry so far.

“It’s exciting to see the number of farmers who are hearing about the Soil Health Partnership (SHP) and are coming to us saying I’d like to be a part of this,” Novak said. “Farmers realize the importance of soil quality, they recognize what soil crops can mean on their farms. They’re interested in joining into a program that’s going to help them learn and understand better the environmental benefit of cover crops.”

Novak said the primary purpose of the SHP is to find farmers willing to work with the program to collect environmental data on their farm regarding soil characteristics as well as environmental benefits.

“We need to understand how cover crops effect and improve water quality, how do they change the health and quality of the soil. We need to understand the economic benefits of the cover crops,” he explained. The interest has been higher than expected; they originally planned to enroll 100 farmers within five years and are well on their way.

The Soil Health Partnership hopes to demonstrate that there may be an economic return from using cover crops through their on farm research over the next few years. In demonstrating economic value, they may be able to incentivize growers to begin adopting this as a process.

Novak mentioned another unique factor of the Soil Health Partnership. “We have seed companies, we have NRCS, but we also have the Environmental Defense Fund and the Nature Conservancy s partners. Any time you can bring government, academic science, industry, environmental organizations, and farmers together, the power within this partnership is absolutely tremendous.” he explained.

Learn more in this interview: Interview with Chris Novak, NCGA

2016 Soil Health Summit Photo Album

Ag Groups, Conservation, Soil, Soil Health Partnership, Sustainability

National Organizations Support Soil Health Partnership

Taylor Truckey

Several national organizations are supporting the efforts of the Soil Health Partnership (SHP).

Jim Gulliford

Jim Gulliford

Jim Gulliford with the Soil and Water Conservation Society spoke about their involvement while at the Soil Health Summit in Indianapolis this past week.

When asked about the value in supporting the SHP, Gulliford commented on the mutual goals the two organizations share. “Farmers learn from farmers and to have farmers leading the effort, getting demonstrations out there, communicating with their neighbors, that’s a real positive way to communicate opportunity to improve soil characteristics, or soil health,” he said.

“The Society’s interests are transitioning science into practice. We’re looking for innovations in science and agriculture that we can take to organizations that take them out to the fields, to the farmers themselves.” When the farmer actually implements the practice and makes those management changes, then SWCS knows they have done their work.

The SWCS supports the Soil Health Partnership through financial means as well as outreach such as publications and the SHP website.

Listen to the rest of Jim’s interview: Interview with Jim Gulliford, Soil and Water Conservation

Karen Scanlon

Karen Scanlon

The Conservation Technology Information Center is another supporting partner of the Soil Health Partnership. “The Conservation Technology Information Center helped to identify and incorporate into the partnership two farmers from a watershed project in Illinois,” says CTIC Executive Director Karen Scanlon. “We’re looking forward to doing even more work with the partnership and spreading the information we’re learning through the farmer network and through the farmer data.”

This initiative, with the help of the demo farmers, is about collecting information and data directly from farmers who are using conservation practices; that’s exactly what CTIC does and the type of information CTIC likes to share. “We are about supporting, encouraging, and providing information that helps farmers adopt conservation systems that are productive and profitable so partnership with SHP just makes sense for us.” explained Scanlon.

Scanlon adds that CTIC would like to see more solid data about soil health benefits come out of the Soil Health project.

Listen to the rest of Karen’s interview: Interview with Karen Scanlon, CTIC

2016 Soil Health Summit Photo Album

Conservation, cover crops, CTIC, Soil, Soil Health Partnership, Sustainability