Soil Health
The integrative concept of soil health highlights soil as an important part of agroecosystems. The Natural Resources Conservation Service defines soil health as the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans. Soil health focuses on dynamic properties of soil rather than its inherent characteristics. There are many characteristics that comprise soil health as a living ecosystem, including:
- High plant, animal, and microbial diversity in the soil
- Non-compacted soil structure that allows for proper root growth and water infiltration and retention
- The ability of the soil to be resilient to environmental stresses, like drought
- Levels of organic matter that supply appropriate nutrients to the plants at the correct time
- The building of soil organic matter and soil quality over time for long term sustainability
- Low levels of disease, weed, and pest pressure
Many agricultural practices have been shown through scientific research and farmer observations to enhance soil health. These practices include using crop rotation diversification, cover crops, no or minimal tillage, polyculture, compost, and insectary strips. Adopting such practices can enable farmers to enhance agrobiodiversity and associated ecosystem services that are important for farm profitability and sustainability, such as reducing the need for chemical inputs, sequestering carbon, and retaining nutrients. Simultaneously, feedbacks of these practices to soil health over time may contribute to production improvements such as better crop quality, higher nutrition value, improved yields, and stable yields during times of environmental stress.
Financial Incentives and Barriers to Soil Health
Financial Incentives and Barriers to Soil Health
May 2021
Anna Larson, Molly McGregor, and Karina Mudd
In Spring 2021, Goldman School of Public Policy students Anna Larson and Molly McGregor, and Master’s of Development Practice student Karina Mudd undertook research to determine the financial tipping point, and ideal accompanying policy, to establish a successful voluntary, opt-in program for landholders to manage land with a focus on enhancing the health of the soil. They looked carefully at incentives and barriers for farm operators, farm owners (if different than operators); potential investors, and policymakers. They considered potential tax and investment benefits to incentivize water and nutrient management practices.
Download Anna Larson’s full report “Evaluating the Potential of Private Farmland Investment to Catalyze Regenerative Agriculture” here.
Download Molly McGregor’s full report “Investing in Soil Health via Regenerative Farmland Investment Trusts: A Policy Analysis and Pilot Recommendations” here.
Download Karina Mudd’s full report “Farmland Investment as a Vehicle for Environmental Conservation: An analysis of stakeholder attitudes and social impacts” here.
Redefining Value and Risk in Agriculture
Redefining Value and Risk in Agriculture
December 2020
Fiona McBride
In June 2020, the Berkeley Food Institute and UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment convened farmers, policy experts, advocates, investors, and other stakeholders in the farming community for a virtual roundtable on public-private solutions to advance regenerative agriculture. We agreed on the problem, yet our diverse perspectives necessitated discussion of the broad range of potential and existing solutions.
The group’s recommendations include:
- Develop a More Robust Research Base: Research institutions should advance the scientific case for regenerative agriculture and standardize measurement protocols
- Reform Crop Insurance: Congress and the US Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management: Agency should reform crop insurance to reflect the risk reduction benefits associated with regenerative practices
- Redefine Risk: Federal and state governments, banks and investors should account for the risk reduction benefits of regenerative practices and reflect those benefits in financing and direct payments
- Advance State-Level Policies: State governments should expand investments in effective existing policies like incentive programs and peer-to-peer support network initiatives
- Prioritize Equity in Agricultural Policies: Government at all levels should develop more integrated and equitable systems to serve farmers, such as streamlined technology platforms and more robust technical assistance
- Urge Landowners and Supply Chain Actors to Enable Regenerative Production: Landowners and supply chains should help promote regenerative farming among tenants and farmers by incorporating flexibility into contracts and removing barriers
Download the full report here.
Promoting Soil Health Innovations
What policy and market barriers are stopping farmers from building healthy soils?
Farmers can adopt an array of healthy soils practices, such as cover cropping, composting, no-till, or rotating crops, that lead to carbon storage in soil, higher/more durable crop yields, better farmer livelihoods, and increased crop quality and nutrition. However, farmers often do not adopt these beneficial methods because of multiple, reinforcing market, knowledge, agronomic, and policy barriers. We are studying the barriers, motivations, and enabling conditions that affect the ability of California farmers to use healthy soils practices. We are currently surveying field staff in the Natural Resources Conservation Service, UC Cooperative Extension, and Resource Conservation Districts across California. We will also interview a sample of farmers in the leafy greens, almonds, and strawberry sectors. (2017-2019)
Contact: Alastair Iles (iles@berkeley.edu)
Read the project summary here.
UC Berkeley Team Members:
- Claire Kremen, Professor, Environmental Science Policy Management (ESPM)
- Alastair Iles, Associate Professor, ESPM
- Timothy Bowles, Assistant Professor, ESPM
- Joanna Ory, Postdoctoral Fellow, ESPM
- Ann Thrupp, Berkeley Food Institute
- Nina Ichikawa, Berkeley Food Institute
Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration
Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration in US Croplands: A Policy Analysis
May 2016
Léopold Biardeau, Rebecca Crebbin-Coates, Ritt Keerati, Sara Litke, and Hortencia Rodríguez
Increasing attention is being paid to the emissions reduction and carbon capture (sequestration) possibilities in soils. While government incentives have long existed to ensure that soils are protected to ensure agricultural productivity and air and water quality, new attention to climate change demands policy solutions that reflect the increased importance — and potential — of soil health.
A Goldman School of Public Policy Independent Policy Analysis team worked with Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Berkeley Food Institute in spring 2016 to identify current challenges and opportunities in cropland soil health, with a particular focus on soil carbon sequestration. Policy options to increase uptake of NRCS soil health programs in California and Iowa were analyzed, including: adapting existing NRCS technical and financial assistance programs; promoting end-market demand for crops grown through sustainable practices; increasing public-private partnerships; allowing farmers to participate in cap-and-trade; and positioning NRCS as a carbon broker for farmers. Recommendations reflect geographic diversity, crop diversity, and current challenges to soil and farmer economic security, as well as political feasibility. Final results were shared with NRCS state and national staff.
Download the executive summary here and the full report here.
Farmer Adoption of Soil Health Practices
Factors Influencing Farmer Adoption of Soil Health Practices in the United States: A Narrative Review
February 2016
Liz Carlisle
Soil health practices – such as cover cropping, crop rotation, and conservation tillage – provide synergistic environmental and economic benefits, both on and beyond the farms that utilize them. Given these benefits, researchers are puzzled by the persistent adoption gap for these practices. This narrative review synthesizes the insights of the soil health practices adoption literature, with a focus on US commodity agriculture. While farms, farmers, and farm communities are too heterogeneous to represent with a single model, this review finds five emergent themes: (1) differences in perspective along the adoption continuum, (2) interaction among soil health practices, (3) qualitatively different pathways to incremental and transformative change, (4) non-economic farmer motives, and (5) the key role of larger farm and food system context. This study finds rational actor models inadequate to explain farmer decision-making, suggesting that researchers would do well to utilize interpretive frames that elucidate interactions among groups of people and take account of multiple forms of capital. Reviewing recommendations for increasing the adoption of soil health practices, this study finds that a complementary approach—combining education, research, policy, measures to overcome equipment barriers, and efforts to address farm and food system context—holds the most promise.
Download the full report here.
Economics of Soil Health
The Economics of Soil Health: Current Knowledge, Open Questions, and Policy Implication
June 2015
Andrew Stevens
Soil health plays an important role in agricultural productivity, environmental resiliency, and ecosystem sustainability. However, this hard-to-quantify holistic concept has proven difficult to incorporate into existing economic and policy frameworks. This report summarizes existing knowledge about the economics of soil health, suggests a methodology for studying the economics of soil health, identifies areas with a need for further research, and discusses current and potential policies that address the economics of soil health. Important components of optimal soil health management include search costs for information, private vs. public benefits, land ownership, carbon policy, and the natural dynamics of soil health characteristics. A case study (Berazneva et al., 2014) is highlighted as an application of an economic framework to soil health in Kenya, suggesting the need for similar studies focused on American agricultural systems. The framework developed in this report suggests that soil health policies focus on increasing access to information and internalizing the positive externalities of healthy soils. However, the magnitude of how far the status quo is from an economic optimum is unclear.
Soil Health and Water
Connecting Soil Health and Water in California
May 2022
Joanna Ory, Timothy Bowles, and Alastair Iles
California farmers are often concerned with water, what it costs, and its short supply. With recent droughts — made more intense by climate change — farmers have relied more on groundwater as surface water allocations decline. Irrigation management and careful crop selection will play important roles in helping farmers avoid these choices. Investing in healthy soil practices will also be an essential strategy for making the best use of rainfall and stewarding irrigation inputs wisely.
Equity and the Healthy Soils Program
The California Healthy Soils Program: Perspectives from Punjabi Farmers
October 2022
Aarij Bashir
In 2017, the California Department of Food and Agriculture launched the Healthy Soils Program. As drought, climate change, and overdrafted groundwater reserves put pressure on California farmers, the Healthy Soils Program would incentivize farming practices that help absorb more water in the soil, sequester carbon, and reduce greenhouse has emissions. While California farmers have motivation to adopt healthy soils practices, a qualitative analysis including interviews with the Punjabi farming community show that there are structural barriers that prevent participation in the Healthy Soils Program, particularly for farmers of color and other minority group farmers.
