This evening, the DLF’s Scott County and SD 20 organizing units, together with the Environmental Caucus, held the Healthy Farms, Healthy Soils Forum, with special guests Laura Schreiber and Emily Minge from the Land Stewardship Project, Representative Todd Lippert (20B) and Minnesota farmer Dane Seifert. Dana gave a compelling overview of how the transition to healthy soils is working on her farm. (If you want to keep up with Land Stewardship Project events and updates, click here and sign up.)

Soil health matters. Healthy soils play an important role in ecosystems. Farming tends to damage soil and make it less healthy.

Principles of soil health include “armoring the soil” to protect it from erosion and degradation, minimizing disturbance of the soil, increasing and maintaining plant diversity, encouraging healthy roots, and integrating the soil biological activity with livestock. A major goal of healthy soil is to help soil become a better and very effective carbon sink. This also reduces the need for as much chemical treatment of agricultural lands.

Rep. Lippert has a bill that will make it easier, or really, possible, for farmers to change their practices to support healthy soil, with less of the risk that may arise from trying something entirely new.

As noted by Dana: “We get the farm system we fund.”

Check out the Land Stewardship Project white paper: Farming to Capture Carbon and Address Climate Change Through Building Soil Health.

From last session’s Agriculture Committee hearings on HF701, Representative Lippert’s bill:

It was a great forum. We will post the video when it becomes available to us.