The Impact of SHP
At a Glance
Since its inception in 2014, SHP built a peer-to-peer network of farmers to explore the economic and environmental benefits and risks of soil heath practices.
Here is simply a snapshot of our achievements.
On-Farm Engagement
SHP field managers supported farmers by providing expertise and insight while implementing on-farm trials. They also collaborated with the rest of our team to build the SHP dataset.
As part of the SHP Field Check process, field managers collected soil health and agronomic data throughout the growing season, ranging from soil temperature and cover crop establishment to yield.
The field team was heavily involved in partnering with SHP farmers to collect historic management data. These details helped contextualize new findings and lay the groundwork for future research.
SHP field managers also worked with farmers and partner organizations to host field days, sharing findings from our trial fields and helping others learn about best practices for building soil health.
Science and Research
Especially in the last few years, we saw the momentum build around SHP's science and research efforts – where historic data and current findings came together to create valuable insights and recommendations for both our SHP growers and the broader agriculture community.
The SHP Cover Crop Planting Report highlighted trends and observations specific to cover crop usage, gathered through our collection of historic management data from SHP farmers.
To share the experiences of farmers implementing soil health practices, we developed three business cases, featuring SHP farmers Mike Buis (Indiana), Roger Zylstra (Iowa) and Tim Gottman (Missouri).
We developed informational resources for nine soil health-related topics – ranging from soil health indicators and soil sampling to transitioning to no-till and grazing cover crops.
Communications and Outreach
Communications and outreach to farmers has been core to SHP's mission since the beginning. These efforts help ensure soil health management practices expand beyond just the farms of those in the program – creating a last impact on agriculture more broadly.
The SHP website acted as a hub for all program resources, including our blog, webinars, business cases, reports and podcasts.
SHP communicated with farmers and others interested in soil health on a daily basis through social media, our blog, The People of Soil Health podcast, an e-newsletter, our Soil Sessions webinars and a quarterly print newsletter to our SHP farmers.
The SHP communications team worked with all members of the organization – whether that was launching virtual field days or creating a research report – to ensure farmers and others benefitted from our work.
Our funding partners
In alphabetical order
- Cargill
- Environmental Defense Fund
- Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research
- General Mills
- Illinois Corn Growers Association
- Iowa Corn Growers Association
- Michigan Milk Producers Association
- Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council
- Missouri Corn Growers Association
- Missouri Fertilizer Control Board
- Missouri Soybean Association
- National Corn Growers Association
- National Wheat Foundation
- Nebraska Corn Growers Association
- South Dakota Corn Growers Association
- Tennessee State Department of Agriculture
- The Fertilizer Institute
- The Nature Conservancy
- United Soybean Board
- United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Services (USDA NRCS)
- Vermillion Basin Water Conservation District
- Walton Family Foundation
- Wolfe’s Neck Center
Want to learn more about conservation practices and farm finances?
Dig into our report Conservation’s Impact on the Farm Bottom Line!