Building Soil Health in Degraded Soils

Costa Rica is home to an incredible amount of natural biodiversity. But it’s also an ideal spot to grow some of the world’s favorite crops, like coffee. How can farmers conserve biodiversity while still meeting global demand for coffee?Today we hear Mariano, an agronomist and coffee producer from Costa Rica, and Javier Peris from Syngenta, about the dynamic relationship between agriculture and biodiversity. ”When you plant a coffee, you spend. 20, 25, 30 years or more with the coffee plant. So that allows you to be part of the ecosystem for all those years. So it's easy to think (in terms of) long term, relationships with the local ecosystems. For example, conservation soil techniques is one of the things that we are doing, and maybe is the main technique or strategy to increase biodiversity and resilience in the local ecosystem that you are producing coffee.” - Mariano, Costa Rican Coffee FarmerMariano is an agronomist whose family has grown coffee in Costa Rica for almost a hundred years. In the past decade, they’ve really focused on transitioning to more regenerative practices. He explains how they’ve moved from conventional coffee farming methods to more ecologically-conscious solutions, and what this means for his business and his soil health. Alongside Mariano, you’ll hear from Javier Peris, a biologist at Syngenta. Javier has worked with Syngenta for the past ten years, mostly in research and development, but he has recently transition to a new role in sustainability where he is a nature specialist. He describes Syngenta’s “Living Grow” program which  promotes biodiversity and soil health in agricultural ecosystems while maintaining agricultural productivity. This Week on Soil Sense:Meet Mariano and Javier Peris and learn about how coffee farms can embrace regenerative practicesDiscover the Living Grow program in Costa Rica and the collaboration taking place to help farmers boost productivity while conserving biodiversityExplore why Javier calls Mariano’s farm “like another world” Understand the connection between soil health and overall biodiversityThe  Soil Sense podcast is for those that believe building healthier soils is not just a prescription, but rather a pursuit. On this show, we unpack the way farmers collaborate to build healthier soils and adapt systems to work on their farm for both sustainability and profitability.Thank you to Syngenta for sponsoring this season of the Soil Sense podcast. If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there!

Oftentimes soil health practices may be thought of as “one more thing” to incorporate on the farm. But in this episode, producer Matt tells us that it would be very difficult for him to farm as much land as he does without soil health practices in play.In fact, soil health practices are what allowed his farm to grow significantly over his career which started in 1988 on just 400 acres. Matt farms with his wife and three sons in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas in the United States. They grow corn, wheat, soybean and cotton on over 20,000 acres and have a black angus cow herd. They utilize soil health practices like no-till, cover crops and terracing to manage their system in their hot and dry climate. We are also joined by Craig Abell who serves as Syngenta’s national executive grower agronomist. Craig has been with Syngenta for 33 years and works with large growers who often farm in multiple states in the US. “ A lot of our growth has been with either families that have wanted to invest in land, institutional investors, or farm management companies. And they came to us because we’re no-till. They will not let other people operate their land unless they are no-till regenerative and taking care of the soil and improving it.” - MattAs farmers look to improve their operations, many are turning to soil health practices. Craig shares that tools like cropwise imagery and cropwise financials allow producers to monitor successful practices to further understand the impact they are having on yield outcome.This Week on Soil Sense:Meet Matt, a producer working over 20,000 acres in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas, and Craig Abell who serves as Syngenta’s national executive grower agronomistExplore how economics drove Matt to incorporate soil health practices into his operation and the many benefits he has experienced through their useDiscover the analytics being used to precisely calibrate rates of seeding and inputs for the best yield outcomes across large operations

Despite a lot of exciting momentum behind regenerative agriculture, it remains necessary that that enthusiasm reaches farmers and leads to real outcomes. But how does that information get shared in a county like India with several million farmers? In this episode we are joined by Subhadra Gupta, the regional field sustainability lead for the Asia Pacific region based in India, and Gaynor Pais, the executive director for International Resources for Fairer Trade (IRFT). We talk about how the soil health conversation is only valuable if a farmer sees how it can fit into their own unique operation. This is a big enough challenge in a place like the United States with major established infrastructure and lines of communication, but imagine building farmer networks in a place like India that has several million smallholder farms that are spread throughout the entire country. “ The kind of engagement and the kind of partnership and the kind of trust that we have been able to build, and we are still building with our farmers when it comes to enhancing soil as a primary and a very, very significant aspect of smart agriculture practices. I think we are very much on the right track. Every year we can see slowly, and I think this is a journey.” - Subhadra GuptaTogether Gupta and Gaynor discuss the very important topic of farmer outreach and engagement when it comes to sharing information about soil health practices. It's critical in conversations about the science and economics of these soil health practices, that we don’t forget the human component in adopting and implementing them.This Week on Soil Sense:Meet Subhadra Gupta, the regional field sustainability lead for the Asia Pacific region based in India, and Gaynor Pais, the executive director for International Resources for Fairer Trade (IRFT)Discover the value and strategy in creating farmer engagement with new soil health practices in IndiaLearn about the cultural challenges and the social impact soil health practices can have on the Indian agricultural producersExplore the collaboration between Syngenta and IRFT to provide training on regenerative practices and create more equitable supply chains

 For a long time, Europe has had very high standards for environmental sustainability and is really concerned about biodiversity. So how does a multi-generational family farm accommodate these interests while still running a profitable and sustainable farm business? We're joined today by a farmer from Germany, Hans Heinrich. And Syngenta's Sebastian Funk to talk about cross-generational farming and trying new ideas across a large operation. ”We often try something and sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. That's normal. But this idea of rebuilding the soil,  I guess that's the most important thing we can do for this generation and for the next generation. “ - Hans Heinrich Hans Heinrich Farms with his wife and his son in eastern Germany. He and his son are constantly dreaming up new ideas and approaches for the farm, and bringing in new equipment from across Europe to implement practices like strip till. They grow corn and potatoes as their main crops with some small grains in rotation on occasion as well.Joining Hans Heinrich is Syngenta's sustainable farm manager for Germany, Sebastian Funk. He grew up on a family farm and is now based in Frankfurt. He works alongside dozens of farmers across the region on sustainable practices, biodiversity research and implementation of digital tools.This Week on Soil Sense:Meet Hans Heinrich and Sebastian Funk and learn more about agricultural soils and systems in this region of GermanyDiscover the collaboration that takes place between farmers like Hans Heinrich and his family and partners like SyngentaUnderstand the importance of biodiversity research and what is being discovered about biodiversity on farms in GermanyExplore some of the digital tools used in farming and soil healthThe  Soil Sense podcast is for those that believe building healthier soils is not just a prescription, but rather a pursuit. On this show, we unpack the way farmers collaborate to build healthier soils and adapt systems to work on their farm for both sustainability and profitability.Thank you to Syngenta for sponsoring this season of the Soil Sense podcast. If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there!

In this episode of Soil Sense, co-hosts Tim Hammerich and Dr. Abbey Wick explore how Brazilian farmers, like Cézar, and Syngenta's Grazielle Parenti, are innovating soil health practices in tropical environments. The discussion focuses on Brazil's potential to double agricultural production without deforestation through initiatives like the Reverte Project. Parenti talks about Syngenta's collaboration with farmers to restore degraded pasture lands into productive farmland. Cézar details his experiences and methods in advancing soil health on his expansive farm, emphasizing the critical role of technology and sustainable practices. Together, they highlight the synergistic efforts in Brazil to boost soil health, create economic benefits, and sustain agricultural productivity.00:00 Introduction to Brazil's Agricultural Potential01:20 Meet the Hosts and Guests01:54 Cézar’s Farming Journey03:30 Soil Health Practices in Brazil06:02 Challenges and Innovations in Tropical Agriculture16:00 The Reverte Project: Transforming Degraded Lands23:13 Technology's Role in Soil Health31:13 Future of Brazilian Agriculture38:33 Conclusion and Takeaways

Introducing: season eight of Soil Sense! Co-hosts Tim Hammerich and Dr. Abbey Wick are excited to bring another season to the show, this time sponsored by Syngenta. Season eight explores soil health at scale, featuring farmers from all around the world.  Science and innovation have unlocked incredible gains in agricultural productivity and sustainability over the years. But there's still so much potential out there, especially if we're able to leverage a better understanding of soil science. We're joined today by Syngenta CEO, Jeff Rowe, and chief soil scientist, Dr. Matt Wallenstein. They challenge us consider the art of the possible when it comes to the future of soil health.“ For most farmers, a lot of farmers in the world, the land is their most important investment. And in some ways, historically, it's been what we understood the least.” - Jeff Rowe Jeff Rowe is the CEO of Syngenta group based in Basel, Switzerland. But the other hat he wears is that of a family farmer. These two vantage points, as an agribusiness CEO and a farmer, make him an excellent guest to kick off this season.  “ Because we hadn't given as much attention to the soil, that now represents the biggest opportunity we have to increase productivity and sustainability in the next decade.” Matt Wallenstein, Ph.D.Dr. Matt Wallenstein joined Syngenta with a background in research at Colorado State, and as an entrepreneur. He launched a startup to commercialize some of this research. He was recruited by Jeff to lead the company's soil health efforts. Jeff and Matt discuss the potential for soil health to advance agricultural productivity and sustainability.This Week on Soil Sense:Meet farmer and Syngenta CEO Jeff Rowe and chief soil scientist Dr. Matt WallensteinExplore how scientific advancements in soil science can lead to opportunities for farmersConsider the importance of resilient soil, the balance of traditional and modern farming methods, and Syngenta's commitment to supporting soil health globallyThank you to Syngenta for sponsoring this season of the Soil Sense podcast. If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there!

In this episode we wrap up season seven of the soil sense podcast with a well known and well respected farmer and long-time soil conservationist, Barry Fisher. Barry recently retired from his career at the USDA, where he most recently worked in the soil health division. In that capacity he met and spoke with farmers about soil health throughout the central part of the US. Since retirement, Barry manages his family farm in Greencastle, Indiana and has a consulting business where he does training and soil health education for organizations through Fisher Soil Health LLC. Barry discusses soil health principles, important considerations for transition to regenerative practices, and the essential role of a knowledgeable advisor. “If you really think about it, our current crops are only feeding the biology June, July, a little bit of May, and maybe a little bit of August. That's a very small percent of the total year… We did a lot of talking about no till as far as protecting erosion, but when we added cover crops to it, that was a game changer in that now the cover crop immediately fed more biology longer. That biology immediately started providing aggregate stability which absolutely helps the surface infiltration of soil, the aeration of soil. You know you start getting better structure to the surface of the soil and that can happen in as little as one season when we add cover crops.” - Barry Fisher One visual Barry has used to help demonstrate soil health to producers is what he has called the “fence row effect.” Previous fence rows can illustrate the value and yield potential when incorporating the four principles of soil health. There is a reduction in disturbance, added diversity of plant life, maintained living roots in the soil and because of that the soil is kept covered. These four principles can allow producers to see a bump in yield in these areas. Barry goes on to explain how to generalize some of those principles on an operation-wide basis.  “Generally there's some farmer in the front row that says, “Okay Fisher, that's great, but, my landlord wants me to farm the whole farm, not just the old fence rows.”... I can show those aerial photos where management on one farm had the four principles kind of in place and the management on the farm right next to it did not. And the aerial photo is very telling that yes, we can manage beyond the fence row. We can get that fence row effect across the entire farm.” - Barry Fisher This Week on Soil Sense: Meet Barry Fisher a current Indiana farmer and retired USDA soil conservationist Explore what Barry calls the “fence row effect” and how that can be applied to demonstrating the four principles of soil health Discover Barry’s recommendations in transitioning tillage and cover crop practices Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute. If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com.

Throughout this series, we have featured a lot of large scale commercial farming operations, but soil health is just as important to farms that operate on smaller acreages as well. Mike Lewis is a farmer, military veteran, and the senior manager for the National Center for Appropriate Technologies. Mike farms in southeastern Kentucky on a small farm in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. His farm consists of 126 acres, 12 of which he uses to grow fresh market vegetables and the other 114 is a forest-based pasture system where he raises cattle, pastured pork and pastured poultry.  “For me, soil health is the most critical thing to the success of our operation… One of Wendell Berry's quotes is, “What I stand for is what I stand on.” And I think that soil is what we all stand on. And it's the foundation for all life and sustenance on this planet. So there's nothing more important than healthy soils.” - Mike Lewis As the senior manager in the sustainable agriculture and rural communities division of NCAT Mike focuses on building resilient communities and supporting farmers in sustainable production systems. The Armed to Farm and Soil For Water programs are two of the many programs he contributes to. Mike also opens up his own family farm to other producers to demonstrate some of the soil health principles he has incorporated on his operation. “I think that one of the things that we're really focused on is being able to have a place where we can show other producers other alternatives to production, right? We open our farm up three or four times a year for other producers to come on and look at our hog production system and to learn how we've reduced our feed inputs by timing of our farrowing and our pasture management skills.” - Mike Lewis This Week on Soil Sense: Meet Mike Lewis, a Kentucky farmer, military veteran, and the senior manager for the National Center for Appropriate Technologies Discover Mike’s journey from the farm to the military and back to the farm to raise his family Explore the Armed to Farm and Soil For Water programs and the opportunities they offer producers Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute. If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com. 

Eisenhower famously said “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.” That resonates with a lot of farmers who know the theory of farming doesn’t always directly translate to the practice. Farmer and agronomist Frank Rademacher joins us to talk about what’s working on his farm in East Central Illinois, and the work he does as a conservation agronomist with The Nature Conservancy. Frank discusses the theory vs the practice when it comes to soil health, what has worked and what hasn’t worked on his farm, how they’ve arrived at some of their current practices, and a little bit on Frank’s work with retailers on behalf of The Nature Conservancy.  “What we kind of found is we were doing diverse mixes, kind of buying into some of that messaging that diverse mixes are always best. And again, I think that's kind of where the theory versus in practice discussion happens because we would have some harsh winters and no snow cover. And so some of those species would not overwinter. And so, we start off on a bad foot if we're really depending on cover crops and we can't get the consistency. So what we've really tried to build over time is a portfolio of cover crops that perform consistently.” - Frank Rademacher Frank found a passion for agronomy while in college, and started helping his father implement some conservation practices on their farm. Over the past 10 years, Frank and his father have gone 100% no-till and insecticide-free on their 600 acre farm. They’ve also ramped up their cover crop program which includes using a roller-crimper and high biomass cover crops. Frank also works as a conservation agronomist with The Nature Conservancy, where part of his focus is working with ag retailers and other farmer advisors to add conservation advice to their business models.  “I understand what some of the environmental goals that Illinois has set out are and I also understand that some of these things are difficult to do at the farm level. And so, how do we scale conservation? That's a lot of what we look at now is not only shaping that cover crop mix to be a little bit more flexible, depending on spring weather, but also just understanding the operation as a whole.” - Frank Rademacher This Week on Soil Sense: Meet Illinois farmer and conservation agronomist Frank Rademacher Explore the balance Frank is finding between operational success and incorporating conservation practices Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute. If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com. 

When you think about soil health, you might picture a soybean field or a corn field.  It may not be immediately apparent how many other industries rely on soil health, like pork. National Pork Board Chief Sustainability Officer Jamie Burr joins us to share about the importance of soil health, conservation, and sustainability to the pork industry. He’s been in this particular role for about six months, but has spent most of his life in the pork industry.  “The reason that the pork board is so involved in that is if you look at all of our footprints, whether it be carbon, land or water, a vast majority of our footprint has to do with making feed. So those crops are as much as 60 to 70 percent of each one of those footprints.” - Jamie Burr Prior to the pork board, Jamie spent almost 24 years at Tyson Foods in various environmental and sustainability roles, most of which were on the live production side in both pork and poultry. Jamie shares how he defines sustainability, why the pork board prioritizes soil health for people, planet and pork, how the industry is striving forward in key areas of sustainability and conservation, and how they’re leveraging data to tell that story to consumers.  “The goal that we have as a pork industry is a 40 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. And that's the farm gate emissions. So that would be from the time the grain is grown til the pigs leave the farm gate…So we have stood up a platform to begin collecting that data so that producers can enter data and then we can start publicly reporting on those metrics from a transparency perspective. Without that data, it's hard to tell a story.” - Jamie Burr This Week on Soil Sense: Meet National Pork Board Chief Sustainability Officer Jamie Burr who shares about the importance of soil health, conservation, and sustainability to the pork industry Explore the sustainability priorities of the Pork Board and the oversight they offer producers Thank you to the Soy Checkoff for sponsoring this Farmers for Soil Health series of the Soil Sense podcast. This show is produced by Dr. Abbey Wick, Dr. Olivia Caillouet, and Tim Hammerich, with support from the United Soybean Board, the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Health Institute. If you are interested in what soil health looks like in practice and on the farm, please subscribe and follow this show on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review while you’re there. Check out the Farmers for Soil Health website at FarmersForSoilHealth.com.