Soil health should not be ignored in infrastructure and climate legislation.

Legislation to rebuild America’s infrastructure, address climate change and restore our economy presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to provide desperately needed funding for vital farm conservation programs to help farmers and ranchers understand and adopt climate-friendly soil health practices and make the investments needed to modernize American agriculture and restore our degraded soils. But the Budget Reconciliation and Infrastructure bills moving rapidly through Congress could leave agriculture conservation out in the cold.

Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, and Representatives Cindy Axne, Ashley Hinson, and Randy Feenstra are front and center in the debate. Grassley and Ernst both serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Grassley is also on the powerful Senate Budget Committee. Axne and Feenstra are on the House Agriculture Committee, and Hinson is on the House Budget Committee. All could play important roles as Congress considers a $3.5 trillion Budget Reconciliation package and a $1 trillion infrastructure package.

In August 2021, the Izaak Walton League and more than 200 conservation, agriculture and civic groups signed on to a letter asking congressional leaders to include “a robust investment into USDA agriculture conservation programs and conservation technical assistance in the budget reconciliation package.” This doubling of USDA conservation program funding is urgently needed.

An additional investment of just $5 billion per year, focused on soil health planning for farmers and incentives for the adoption of climate-friendly soil health practices, could help transform and modernize American agriculture and rebuild our depleted soils. This urgent need should not be left out of infrastructure and climate change legislation being considered by Congress.

Congress and the President should recognize the tremendous potential for investments in soil health to deliver natural resource and other public benefits across America, financial benefits for farmers and ranchers, and economic benefits for rural communities.

Background and Details

The most basic piece of a nation’s infrastructure is a food system able to feed its people. The most critical part of our food system infrastructure is our soil. From early soil conservationists to modern scientists like David Montgomery, authors have documented how great nations rise and fall on the health of their soil.

The importance of our soils was recognized by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison who wrote about soil conservation, compost recipes and farming methods.

A growing body of science reveals importance of living, healthy soils. Innovative farmers like North Dakota farmer/rancher Gabe Brown, Ohio farmer Dave Brandt, Indiana farmer Rick Clark, Iowa farmer/rancher Seth Watkins, and many others show how rebuilding soil health translates into higher, more consistent profits for farmers along with many natural resource benefits.

In the 1930’s dust storms rolled from the Great Plains to the east coast, darkening the skies in Washington, DC, and making it impossible for Congress to ignore the damage done to our soil by poor conservation practices exasperated by years of drought. The Dust Bowl of the 1930’s was as much a product of poor agricultural practices as it was the lack of rainfall.

Congress and the President responded, creating the Soil Conservation Service and launching a nation-wide effort to bring better conservation practices to America’s farmland. Those efforts slowed soil erosion, but they fell short of solving the problem. For example, according to USDA, Iowa farmers today lose a ton of soil to erosion for each ton of corn they produce.

Since Colonial times, America has lost half of its topsoil, and at current rates of soil loss the world could lose half of its remaining topsoil by 2050. Feeding a growing population with half as much topsoil is a recipe for food insecurity.

America’s soil has also lost half or more of the organic matter in those soil. Organic matter typically makes up less than 10% by volume of our topsoil, but it is the critical fuel for the microbial armies of bacteria and fungi that help plants obtain water, access nutrients, and fight off pests and disease. Tillage, widespread use of pesticides and chemical fertilizer, and intensive monoculture farming, along with continued erosion, rob our soils of this much-needed component.

As Congress and the President consider initiatives to address America’s infrastructure, climate change and other important needs, they need to make soil health a priority.

Investing in Soil

Rebuilding the health of America’s soils will require changes in how our farm and ranch land is managed. Those changes require education of our country’s farmers, ranchers, farmland owners, agriculture service providers, government agencies and others who provide advice and assistance to farmers — and that education and outreach will require staff and resources at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Millions of acres of publicly owned land used for agricultural purposes, like grazing in our National Forests and National Grasslands, could also benefit from investments in soil health practices.

Changing practices will often require new investments by farmers and ranchers to obtain the infrastructure needed to restore and protect their soil.

  • Investments in seed drills will let farmers reduce or eliminate tilling the soil, an age-old practice that we now know destroys soil fungi that help feed plants and fight off pests and disease.
  • Purchasing seeds for cover crops can provide living cover and roots that hold soil in place over the winter, ensure beneficial soil microbes are fed year around, and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers while reducing weed pressure.
  • Community-level investments in planting and harvest equipment and storage and handling facilities for third and fourth crops like small grains can help farmers diversify their crop rotation, helping defeat pests and disease and reducing the need for expensive pesticides that harm soil microbes.
  • Ranchers can boost the health of their soil by investing in fencing and water systems that allow them to divide up their pasture and move cattle, sheep and other livestock to fresh grass every day. The practice will improve the health of their grasslands and, over time, let them feed more animals on the same land.

USDA conservation programs currently provide about $6 billion annually to help farmers and ranchers adopt better conservation practices, but that funding falls far short of meeting the demand from farmers.

Almost as many farmers are turned away each year as can be helped, and unsuccessful farmers often stop asking for assistance they might never see.

An additional investment of just $5 billion per year, focused on soil health planning for farmers and incentives for the adoption of climate-friendly soil health practices, could help transform and modernize American agriculture and rebuild our depleted soils. This urgent need should not be left out of infrastructure and climate change legislation being considered by Congress.

Soil Health Investments Deliver Public Benefits

Investments in rebuilding America’s soils will deliver a myriad of benefits for our natural resources alongside financial and operational benefits for farmers and ranchers.

  • Healthy soils absorb water like a sponge, reducing polluted runoff of pesticides, fertilizer, and manure, cleaning our waters and reducing the need for infrastructure downstream to take those pollutants out of our drinking water. USDA says with a 1% increase in the organic matter level in a field the soil can hold 27,000 gallons more water per acre;
  • By absorbing precipitation and holding it for future crop needs, healthy soils can reduce flooding downstream along with the need for improvements to infrastructure like levees and floodwalls;
  • Planting buffer strips or restoring grasslands can take the equivalent of a ton or more CO2 equivalent per acre per year from the air and store it in the soil, and planting windbreaks can store even more carbon. By combining practices like eliminating tillage, planting cover crops, and fertilizing with compost farmers can reduce CO2 equivalent emissions on cropland by a ton per acre per year. The practices reduce emissions of nitrous oxides from the soil and help plants take carbon out of the air and store it back in the soil, combatting climate change by reducing the level of excessive greenhouse gases in our atmosphere;
  • Climate-friendly practices like planting buffer strips and windbreaks, planting cover crops, reducing pesticide use, and managed rotational grazing provide habitat and other benefits for fish and wildlife. With grassland bird species in sharp decline across North America, restoration and better management of grasslands provides huge wildlife benefits;
  • Careful research is beginning to show that soil health practices grow healthier, more nutritious food, which in turn results in healthier people and less need for health care infrastructure;
  • Soil health practices help farmers reduce their need for expensive fertilizers and pesticides, further reducing the potential for polluted runoff into nearby waters and keeping more dollars in rural communities where they can reverberate through rural economies. With a 1% increase in soil organic matter, farmers can achieve similar yields with 30-40% less nitrogen fertilizer.

Congress and the President should recognize the tremendous potential for investments in soil health to deliver natural resource and other public benefits all across America, financial benefits for farmers and ranchers, and economic benefits for rural communities. Soil health and farm conservation investments should not be left out of infrastructure and climate change legislation.