Soil Health Stewards Program

Soil Health Stewards Program: Promoting Soil Health on Protected Agricultural Lands

AFT's Soil Health Stewards Program is an ambitious national effort to engage and support agricultural land protection practitioners in promoting soil health practices with the farmers, ranchers, and others who own and manage permanently protected agricultural land—and on the agricultural land their agency or organization owns.

Geographic Scope: National effort with regional training and implementation:

• Northeast Region (Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio)
• Southeast Region (Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia)
• Midwest Region (Wisconsin, Iowa, West Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, North Carolina)
• Western Region (Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington)
• Northeast/New England Region (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont)

Focus Areas:

• Promoting soil health practices on permanently protected agricultural land
• Preventing loss of soil and nutrients to waterways
• Protecting water quality and quantity
• Restoring soil biology and function
• Enabling farms and ranches to sequester carbon
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
• Building farm resilience to intense and erratic weather

Target Audience:

• Land trusts
• Public Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement (PACE) programs
• Agricultural land protection practitioners
• Farmers and ranchers owning permanently protected land

Scope: Program focuses on over 6 million acres of permanently protected farms and ranches across the United States

Program Impact (Five Years):

• 127 entities trained
• 256 participants
• 4,868,692 total acres of agricultural conservation easements covered
• Participants estimate collectively reaching over 260,000 farmers, ranchers, landowners, and additional land trust and agency staff and board members
• Producers and landowners engaged steward over 6.5 million acres of farmland and ranchland

Program Components:

1. Grant funding for participating agencies and land trusts
2. Multi-year action plan development and reporting requirements
3. Training opportunities
4. Webinar series on soil health topics
5. Online toolkit with video sessions and resources

What They Don't Fund:

• Not specified in materials provided

Contact Information:

• Cris Coffin, Director of AFT's National Agricultural Land Network
• Jennifer Dempsey, AFT Farmland Information Center Director and Senior Advisor

Resources Available:

• Downloadable Summary
• Soil Health Toolkit
• NRCS Soil Health Fact Sheets
• Farmers.gov Soil Health Webpage
• Soil Health Webinar Series recordings
• Soil Health Stewards Online Toolkit

Application Process

Grant Award Requirements:
Participating agencies and land trusts must:

1. Accept a grant from the program
2. Develop a multi-year Soil Health Stewards Action Plan
3. Report on progress towards the action plan

Training:

• Entities receiving grants send staff to attend regional training (3-4 days)
• Training covers soil health basics, economics, and implementation strategies
• Participants develop their own Soil Health Stewards Action Plan during training

Online Toolkit Access:

• Available to agricultural land protection practitioners
• Includes video sessions and resources for engaging landowners
• Can be used at multiple touchpoints: initial conversations about easements, deed term discussions, conservation/management plan development, and easement stewardship/monitoring visits

Webinar Series (Past Sessions - Recordings Available):

• Session #1: Soil Health Basics, Benefits, Barriers (June 25, 2-4 EDT)
• Session #2: Soil Health Economics: Farmers Guides and Case Studies (July 9, 2-4 EDT)
• Session #3: Using Management Plans and Easement Stewardship to Promote Soil Health (July 23, 2-4 EDT)