Farm 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: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/shs16-brennan.mp3″ text=”Interview with Tim Brennan, Farm Foundation”]