Cooperative Agreement to Improve Soil Health Tools

American Farmland Trust (AFT) and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service have signed a two-year, $2 million cooperative agreement to further develop and improve AFT’s soil health economic and environmental tools, including three Soil Health Economic Calculators. AFT announced that it will create a Soil Health Economics Accelerator Team, expanding the existing team by hiring five new staff including economists and soil scientists. The tools focus on the economic outcomes of implementing soil health-promoting practices. Michelle Perez, AFT’s Water Initiative Director, says, “For the 13 ‘soil health successful’ producers we’ve analyzed and featured in case studies so far, their adoption of soil health practices has led to a return on investment (ROI) between 7% and 343% for row crop farmers and 198% and 553% for the almond growers. We hope that expanding our suite of soil health economic and environmental tools will help bring economic benefits to more farmers and greater environmental benefits to society.”