Several national organizations are supporting the efforts of the Soil Health Partnership (SHP) and the research they are doing with farmers across the US.

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: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/shs-16-guliford.mp3″ text=”Interview with Jim Gulliford, Soil and Water Conservation”]

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: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/shs-16-scanlon.mp3″ text=”Interview with Karen Scanlon, CTIC”]

2016 Soil Health Summit Photo Album