Building Soil Health in Maryland through Agricultural Service Provider Education

Several email notices were distributed to a project mailing list with 269 ag service providers and 23 farmers, and to a UMD ag extension list with about 50 members.

The mailing list in announcement-only format includes 295 ASPs and 8 farmers. Announcements were also sent to about 190 University of Maryland faculty. The original Google Group was lost due to a reconfiguration of University of Maryland Google accounts. The educator reached out to another MD soil health project (Maryland Soil Health Initiative) to combine forces to create a discussion group with the critical mass necessary to sustain lively online discussions about soil health and related issues, but that project dissolved.

The state coordinator, Nevin Dawson, hosted a webinar presenting information about the Building Soil Health project and featuring a guest speaker, Dr. Sara Hirsh. Hirsh presented the results of her recently completed doctoral research on deep soil nitrogen capture and recycling by early planted, deep-rooted cover crops. At the time, Hirsh had just accepted an offer to serve as the Somerset Co. UMD Extension Ag Educator, so the presentation served as an introduction to her and her expertise in that role as well.

Dawson gave an overview of the project, the associated soil health self-evaluation tool, and the opportunities for ag service providers to participate in the project. These opportunities include further development and outreach of the tool, and also participation in a trip to Rodale Institute to learn about their work in reducing tillage and building soil health in organic production systems.

Of the 30 attendees, there was at least one farmer, 3 extension educators, 1 non-profit staff, 1 other (non-UMD) university/college faculty, one commodity association representative, and one soil conservation district staff. Not all attendees completed the survey. Attendance was lower than proposed, but, in retrospect, 75 attendees was probably an overly ambitious goal. A video recording of the webinar is available at https://extension.umd.edu/soil-health/workshops.

The Future Harvest CASA annual conference (Hyattsville, MD) included a “Regenerative Agriculture” track, which had 33 participants. Session topics included the advances in science and initiatives to promote carbon farming in Maryland and around the world, and farming practices that build upon the synergy between healthy soils and climate change adaptation/mitigation. In the “Grassfed: Meat and Dairy” track, Nicole Masters (Integrity Soils) spoke about reading weeds as an indicator of soil condition, and the importance of soil microbial health. Gabe Brown, an internationally renowned regenerative rancher, was a keynote speaker who addressed most of the 452 attendees on that day, recounting his successful use of cover cropping, no-till, and other soil health practices to significantly increase his farm’s profitability and sustainability. No affiliation data is available for these participants, but farmers generally comprise a majority of conference attendees with many beginning farmers and dabblers. Service providers present are often representing non-profit organizations. Dawson served on the conference planning committee and helped to plan the sessions.

The Alice Ferguson Foundation (AFF) is leading a project, Harnessing Our Underground Workforce: Putting Healthy Soils to Work for Maryland Agriculture, that in part aims to “Establish a cadre of leaders and practitioners in the healthy soils arena through identification of statewide cross-sectoral leaders who can engage in and influence policies and practices related to healthy soils in a productive and meaningful way.” As this goal closely aligns with the performance target of this state project, the partnership was natural. Dawson participated in one of two sessions that brought ASPs and some farmers together to learn about current work in soil health and discuss the best way forward. 

While the meetings discussed above (Milestone 5) did include facilitated discussions, there was no time for the topic of the self-evaluation tool. 

A functional pilot version of the tool is available to the public for use (http://ter.ps/SHeval). The opportunity to participate in the committee was described in several soil health presentations. Interest in participating on the committee was low, but use of the tool has been slowly spreading through website links and handouts at presentations.

The full series of field days was not presented as planned, but 3 events were put on in partnership with other groups and organizations.

The first event (3/27/18; 25 ASPs, 11 farmers) was put on in partnership with the MD Healthy Soils Consortium, and featured a tour of Mason’s Heritage, a large-scale organic grain and vegetable operation, as well as a visit to a neighboring conventional grain farm. Soils at both were compared and contrasted using the MD Soil Health Card, a tool developed by Maryland NRCS to be used by ASPs and farmers to quickly evaluate the level of soil health in a particular field without any specialized equipment.

The second event (5/7/18; 24 ASPs, 6 farmers) was put on in partnership with ShoreRivers, “A clean water voice for Maryland’s Eastern Shore,” and Queen Anne’s County UMD Extension. The morning session featured a demonstration of liquid dairy manure injection (with an unintendedly spectacular show of what can happen when improper mixing leads to hose clogs and the resulting fountains of manure down the line). Attendees also participated in a tour of the host Fry family’s Fair Hill Farm, an innovative organic dairy operation. Dawson led the afternoon session, with a presentation on why soil health matters, a demonstration of the self-evaluation tool, and an invitation to use the tool with farmers. David Wilson (Penn State Extension) talked about Penn State’s Reduced-Tillage Organic Systems Experiment (ROSE) project, and his experiences in working towards the broader goal of no-till organic grain cropping.

The third event (6/7/18; 8 ASPs, 10 farmers) was put on in partnership with Future Harvest CASA, a sustainable agriculture non-profit organization, and featured a tour of St. Brigid’s farm, a veal and dairy operation with rotational grazing and robotic milking. Dawson talked about soil health and demonstrated the use of the MD Soil Health card.

Dawson presented a 30 minute session on story-telling as an educational tool to 41 UMD Agriculture Extension colleagues as part of the summer UMD ag in-service training. He included an example story about the development of his own interest in soil health and two examples showcasing successful Northeast SARE grantees in the Partnership and Farmer Grant programs.

Slide presentation: Story-Telling-for-Education-DAWSON

Google Analytics shows a count of 425 “Users” during the project year.

The webinar was put on hold until the evaluation tool underwent another round of revisions. These revisions and the webinar were delayed, and then never took place due to a shift in the educator's responsibilities.

The webinar was put on hold until the evaluation tool underwent another round of revisions. These revisions and the webinar were delayed, and then never took place due to a shift in the educator's responsibilities.

The development of this framework was delayed and then never took place due to a shift in the educator's responsibilities. However, the tool was visited 49 times and 29 users answered one or more questions. Six of these respondents indicated that they are a farmer; the remaining 23 were presumably ASPs.

The development of this framework was delayed and then never took place due to a shift in the educator's responsibilities.

The conference was held on January 17-19 in College Park, MD, and hosted 619 farmers, educators, and food system workers. Session topics at the included the role of sulfur in soil health (55 participants, taught by Ray Weil, member of project advisory committee) and two sessions related to building soil health in pasture (48 participants). These were head counts conducted by the room moderators, and no breakdown by participant type is available. Conference attendees represent Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, with the majority coming from Maryland. The PI served on the conference committee and helped to direct the program content.

Field demonstration sites were not established for 2019. Field-based educational activities will focus on the work of early adopter farmers and farmers with their own test strips for innovative practices.

The State Coordinator spoke to Rodale Institute staff about tour and workshop options and decided against visiting the campus for the public open house in favor of a private tour and focused presentations and discussions on soil health with Institute researchers on October 21, 2019. He also described this tour opportunity during several soil health presentations (see milestone 19).

After limited response from the smaller group, an invitation to apply for a spot on the trip was distributed widely to the 350 ASPs on the project mailing list and the Maryland Soil Health Initiative mailing list.

Seven ASPs and one farmer applied and were accepted to attend the Rodale Institute bus trip. Five additional ASPs wrote with regrets that they had previous engagements. The date was selected based on the availability of all three relevant Rodale researchers, but it unfortunately conflicted with several local events. The long itinerary with long travel times may have also contributed to the low attendance.

Participants attended an introductory online meeting on October 17 at which we reviewed the purpose, the content, Rodale's unique position within the organic ag community, and logistics. Slide set with trip itinerary: Rodale Bus Trip.

While on the bus, the group listened to three episodes of a soil health podcast, "Priming for Production: A Podcast for Soil Health" (Northeast SARE project ONE15-251). The PI prepared discussion questions for each episode, soil health practices in general, and their take-home messages from the trip: Soil health podcast discussion questions.

During the visit to Rodale, participants heard from CEO, Jeff Moyer, as well as three researchers working on soil health issues: Andrew Smith (Chief Scientist), Emmanuel Omondi (Director of Farming Systems Trial), and Yichao Rui, Soil Scientist. The field tour included stops at the Long-term Vegetable Systems Trial, the Long-term Grain Systems Trial, and the Compost operation. 

On the return bus trip, participants discussed what they learned and how their opinions were influenced. the consensus was that it was a valuable experience with many lessons to share with farmer clients and the general public.

Both the podcasts and the conversation at Rodale focused heavily on the importance of soil carbon and how management in organic systems affects it differently than in conventional systems. One of the messages the group took home was that tillage and good soil health can coexist in organic systems when the farmer is dedicated to keeping the soil covered with living plants, rotating crops intelligently, and feeding the soil with high quality compost.

There was also discussion about the possible value in linking conservation practices that reduce yield risks to decreased premium payments for crop insurance programs.

Rodale post-tour discussion questions

These field days are on hold with new tentative dates in September, and a possible partnership with NRCS. However, the state coordinator was involved in several other related educational activities.

The state coordinator taught two workshops at the Delmarva Soil Summit on November 1, 2018.

"For Agricultural Service Providers: How to Create Change" focused on best practices for communicating with farmers to help them improve their operations. Topics fell under the categories of brain-based learning, story telling, and motivating continued engagement of educational programs. 12 ASPs participated.

"Soil Health Toolbox for Grain Producers" showcased four free tools for soil health and cover crop decision making and evaluation. One of these was the Soil Health Self-Evaluation tool described above. 9 ASPs and 16 farmers (25 total) participated.

The state coordinator gave a presentation summarizing his state project work at the Northeast Cover Crop Council conference on November 15, 2018 titled, "Building Soil Health Through MD Ag Service Provider Education." He highlighted the tools and techniques used and demonstrated throughout the project. 20 ASPs participated.

The state coordinator co-chaired the UMD Extension Winter Ag and Food Systems In-service training on December 13, 2018. He presented a workshop, "Motivating Adult Learners," that helped participants understand the factors that influence participants in educational programs to continue their participation and learning after the first event.  11 UMD Extension faculty participated. Slide presentation: Adult Learner Motivation (Dawson)

At a collaborative soil health meeting hosted by Future Harvest CASA on January 16, 2019, the state coordinator gave a presentation summarizing the development and function of the Soil Health Self-Evaluation Tool to a group of 31 ASPs.

On January 31, 2019, the state coordinator hosted a group of Chinese delegates employed by various agricultural agencies for an afternoon session about soil health. Topics included the basics of soil health and soil health management, the no-till revolution, local agricultural history, and the role of herbicides in soil health management. 20 Chinese delegates attended (not included in above totals).

The State Coordinator chaired the planning committee for the University of Maryland Ag and Food Systems In-Service Training. The cover crop topics were replaced with a session on behavioral economics (factors in language and survey design that can intentionally or unintentionally influence readers and participants). Topics by other speakers will include infographic design and farmer mental health.

Slide Presentation: Insights from Behavioral Economics