Podcast Episode

John Mesko: (00:30)
Welcome back to The People of Soil Health. Today's guest, Dr. Bianca Moebius-Clune, serves as Director of the Soil Health Division for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service, or NRCS. She's a real pioneer in the soil health movement, so I know I'm looking forward to getting to know more about her and what she knows. Bianca, welcome to the podcast.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (00:53)
Thank you very much, really nice to be here.

John Mesko: (00:56)
I read that you became interested in soil in college and had a chance to study abroad. Can you tell me more about how you got such a passion for soil?

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (01:08)
Well, that's a long story, I could probably talk about that for hours. I actually started my interest in soil really even back before I can remember. I grew up gardening; I always remember enjoying food and digging in the soil, so it goes long back. But, yeah, when I went to Madagascar as a study abroad in 1999, that was really the start of my work in soil health. It was a six-month study abroad while I was at the University of New Hampshire studying soils already, and it really left me that impression in a very concretionary way of humanity's interconnection with and dependency on soils.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (01:46)
And so while I was there I really got that firsthand concrete connection between soil function and ecosystem services. In particular, the connection was so stark between soil health and human health and wealth and resilience and food security. Those who had degraded land that was unproductive, those were the folks that really struggled, and those who had innovated and brought their land back really thrived. And I didn't know to call it soil health back then; little did I know that I would end up working on this very topic for decades to come.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (02:21)
It's been a really exciting topic to work on, but even then I was working with a group of women in the highlands of Madagascar, translating what I had learned about soils thus far in college from English into French and then a French translator translated that into Malagasy. And I could see their inspiration grow as they started to understand the impact of their continuous dry season burning and grazing that was having on those soils and their ability to function.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (02:53)
They were getting lack of grass production, sedimented rice paddies, lost crops, underfed livestock. And we then worked together to plan for their implementation of a system that included increased diversity and soil cover and living roots and decreased disturbance, and little did I know that those are exactly the soil health management systems principles that we work on today to get those integrated across the agency. That really then led me to pursue further degrees in soil sciences that really stimulated my passion, that interconnection, that ability to make a difference in both people's lives and the environment at the same time. That's really where I found my niche.

John Mesko: (03:35)
One of the things that strikes me in hearing your story is the impact and the importance that working with individual farmers whether it's in Madagascar or here in the United States, farming is the major impact on our soils worldwide and what a great opportunity it must be for you working for NRCS to work with farmers now in the Soil Health Division that you work in there. Tell us a little bit about how you came to work for NRCS and the impact that that has had on your career?

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (04:09)
Well, it has been a really amazing career, really amazing opportunity to work with this agency. I worked with farmers while I was at Cornell and really started to collaborate with NRCS at that point. We worked with producers, we started developing a soil health management plan even at the time through an agreement, I was working with some folks in New Hampshire at the time. And even there, working one-on-one like you're saying with a producer. For example, there was a producer who had been able to grow strawberries, had to abandon that, tried growing sweet corn and that stopped working. And what we discovered is that really the issue was soil health. A standard soil test just showed that everything was fine.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (04:54)
And so I really got into working with NRCS because the agency really focuses on those other components of soil function, the loss of organic matter, the loss of aggregate stability, the increased soil crusting and compaction that you get, the increased erosion that happens. And I could really see that that's where the impacts were because that's something that a lot of producers are not necessarily aware of. And so how did I come to work for the agency? Well, I saw a job announcement and I had been working in soil health for a while, developing soil health testing and management approaches and it just looked like just the right thing and so the rest is history.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (05:37)
I came on board in 2014 and I have had the opportunity and really incredible opportunity to start up a whole new division, that's not something that everybody has the opportunity to do. And I'm just so thankful to have had the opportunity to get that going, to work with everybody else who's been working with the agency on soil health for a long time and really move things to the next level, so that's been really exciting.

John Mesko: (06:01)
Well, it sounds great and it's very indicative of the commitment that NRCS is making here when you point out that not too many people get to start a brand new division of a large government agency like NRCS. And so specifically though, what is the role of the Soil Health Division that you are leading?

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (06:25)
We are there to work with everybody across the agency to develop strategies for the agency to provide high-level training to other trainers. So for example, we train state staff, our agency staff; we train partner staff. We work jointly across our staff and partners to develop technical materials, to develop training materials that then really end up influencing all of the agency's customers down to the producer who actually implements that system. We also work on the policy side and our Conservation Practice Standards. So you may be familiar with the natural resources conservation practice standards that we have at the national level that then get adapted at every state.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (07:13)
And the way that our conservation planning process starts is by the identification of resource concerns. So, for example, we have implemented two new foundational soil health resource concerns – soil organism habitat and aggregate stability. We've added those to the agency’s other resource concerns. We have been integrating those into the Conservation Practice Standards. We work across the disciplines on how soil health influences water quality, water quantity, risk for producers, production systems, air quality, animal health, plant health – there's really a lot of those interconnections.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (07:50)
And so our division which is very small but spread across the country has a lot of points of contact and a lot of ways that we influence the way that the rest of the agency works. And I just want to say we can't do it alone, there's always room for everybody on the train. And so certainly with soil health it's not just our division; the entire agency has had this as a main priority for a while now. And there's leadership in soil health at the state level; we work with our state technical contacts to help them on their soil health strategies at the state level, we help at the national level, we work across disciplines across the various different areas on various aspects that NRCS works on in soil health. A lot of different things that we're involved in.

John Mesko: (08:42)
Well, absolutely. And just like the work that we do at the Soil Health Partnership, the work that you're involved in I'm sure involves a lot of partnerships. I know that we partner as an organization with NRCS on a number of different levels, both at national and state levels. And I know it's pretty common that folks that are interested in advancing conservation practices or just awareness of some of the needs that are out there, partnering with NRCS is critical. How do on-farm research trials like what we conducted at Soil Health Partnership contribute to the work of the NRCS?

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (09:24)
Ah, in many different ways that's a great question. The on-farm research trials, you all have been doing those for a while even without the current Farm Bill funding that we now have. We actually, as part of our Conservation Innovation Grant program, have soil health demonstration trials that are funded at the $10 million and above per year level at this point. And so we work with you all on one of those projects and a number of other organizations.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (09:50)
And one of the key new things that we've established for this funding source is we actually now have a minimum data set defined that all of our projects collect that minimum data set. And so what that means is not only do we learn from your specific project and the producers that you work with and the regions that you are able to work in, but the plan is to actually roll up the data from all of the projects across the country. And by being able to have a minimum data set that's shared across all of those projects, we will have a much more consistent, nationally-applicable data source from which we can learn where we can then compile data from your trials, from those of various other organizations that we work with.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (10:38)
Various ways that that information gets integrated into the agency. We have just a couple of years ago put out a technical note on standardized soil health assessments for laboratory analysis. There were never any standards and there was a lot of diversity in assessments, there will continue to be a lot of diversity and a lot of progress in assessments and in no way do the standards limit that. But what we get from having created some national standards is that we actually have the opportunity to have these particular indicators measured the same way across the entire country and look at how those come out on different soil types in different climates, in different systems.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (11:21)
And that starts to let us build interpretation functions that are nationally consistent but regionally appropriate for particular production systems, soils and climates. And so that's one of the various efforts that these trials contribute to, is we gather that data set and that allows us to integrate with soil surveys, the dynamic component of soil properties or soil health indicators, and allows us to then interpret those better for the public.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (11:49)
Also, as you all implement practices and we assess how fast those practices improve soil function, we have outcomes that we collect data on, for example the economics of soil health. There's a lot of case studies out there. There are a lot of stories by producers about how amazing soil health has been for their economics, but we're starting to really combine across all those projects to come up with a national dataset on the economics of soil health.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (12:19)
And so that, and then practice standard updates. We update our practice standards every several years, and as new technology comes up we can integrate those newest technologies into our practice standards and the way that they are implemented to meet certain criteria so that we can address the resource concerns that we find on the land. So as you can see there's all of those influences and then there's probably more that I didn't think to mention just now but we can really start to nationally look at water quantity, water quality, air quality, resilience, yield stability, product quality, yield risk, all of these kinds of outcomes for soil health to help our producers understand just how much there is to gain from implementing soil health management systems.

John Mesko: (13:07)
Well, and I think that's a tremendous effort that you're pulling this together, the standardization and making sure you have a minimum data set so that you can leverage that for decision-making and so forth. And in the work that we do, and you just mentioned it, for farmers to decide, for farmers to use information to make changes to their practices, to implement new technology or new practices that they're not currently using, that leads to the environmental outcomes we're looking for.

John Mesko: (13:39)
There's a gap between research and economic study and educational resources and public policy, there's a gap between all of those things and the farmer making a decision at a very granular level, "I'm going to plant cover crops for the first time." Or whatever the case may be. How does NRCS play in the middle space? You've described how you're on the research side of things and standardizing which is obviously the beginning of this process. But as we move towards farmer adoption and, in particular, permanent practice change, how does NRCS bridge that gap?

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (14:25)
I would really say that's one of the key things that drew me to NRCS and that makes staff who work for NRCS so passionate about being part of the agency, is that we as an agency are where the rubber hits the road. We have field staff across the country who do a fantastic job meeting one-on-one with the producer, walking the land, looking at what resource concerns they have, discussing their management. And as our staff have learned about soil health they are leading in their counties. They're working with the partners, they're working with their producers, they bring innovative producers to workshops that then other producers come to where they can train their whole community of producers on just how important soil health is.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (15:11)
And the key thing, we work on conservation planning and implementation with our producers. So our field staff meet one-on-one, they develop that conservation plan to address the resource concerns found on the landscape and then develop a series of ways to manage to address those resource concerns and help their producers implement those plans. As we have trained our staff more, as our staff have learned from partners, from producers on what is possible, how we can push the envelope and really create these new systems, they are creating that change in their counties by helping farmers be successful and I think this is such a key.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (15:54)
You can, as a producer, try cover crops for the first time. Well, if you fail, you may never try it again. Whereas if you have somebody there working on it with you, somebody who you can have that conversation with who can say, "Okay, try that on one field, see how it goes, then let's look at what issues may have come up. Let's figure out why those happened, let's adjust it for the next year." Those producers who really have somebody alongside or a community of folks alongside with them to figure out what the issues are and to resolve them so that they can be successful, those are the producers who may start with either just our technical assistance or they may start with both technical and financial assistance to put those practices and those systems on the land.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (16:41)
But usually, when you have somebody who really learns to succeed, who figures out all these details, they don't want to go back. They tell the stories of how their life is better now, how they have a more positive outlook for being able to pass their land onto the children, how their economics turn around and they feel their operation is now sustainable. And they adopt those new systems with all of their benefits and they stick with them and that's really where the agency has had such a huge impact because we're able to help producers do that.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (17:15)
And those producers are then peers to their next door neighbors who may or may not talk to NRCS, but who may then learn from them. And this is something that we've really seen. For example, Indiana has some great data where they see that for every cover crop acre that they provide technical and financial assistance for, they get about three to four acres more of adoption, and that's just a really excellent place to be as an agency to be able to have that kind of influence.

John Mesko: (17:42)
That is fantastic. And there's a lot of good work going on – obviously, as you've outlined at the state level, locally, county level – work going on between NRCS and farmers and helping bring about that permanent practice change. A lot of our listeners are farmers, we have a number of folks that are part of our farmer network and a number of folks that are interested in being a part of our farmer network. And so I certainly would be interested in giving you the opportunity to speak directly to them. What are some of the things that you would really like farmers to know about NRCS, the work that you're doing there at Soil Health Division, or soil health in general from your perspective?

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (18:29)
Oh, so many things. I think what I would start with is the why. Why is it that we're promoting soil health? Because I think soil health is about addressing the root problem. Everything else is symptoms, right? Erosion is a symptom of soil organism habitat being degraded. And when our soils function, when a raindrop hits the surface and it goes in instead of running off and taking soil and nutrients and organic matter with it, that's where we start to see the difference. And so helping producers understand you all who are out there who have the wonderful opportunity to manage a piece of land of whatever size you have.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (19:12)
I think the thing to know is soil health is a win-win opportunity and farmers all across the country – farmers and ranchers and foresters – as they're starting to understand how soils at their very core function to provide us with everything we need – our profits, our environmental, our ecosystem services, our water quality or water quantity, our system resilience, carbon is sequestered; our systems become more resilient in the face of extreme weather. There's win-win all around because not only does the producer win right there on their land because they're able to grow the crop and able to maintain that and to make money and often reduce inputs, but also all of society wins.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (20:03)
If you think about a watershed and you think about two inches of rain falling down, you think about all of those, say hundreds of acres, thousands of acres, millions of acres of water as a rainstorm hits; if that water runs off, that's where we get flooding. If we don't get rain and we have dried up soils that are bare, we get dust storms that make it so that there's no visibility on roads, we see these issues. But when producers one-by-one on their land make those decisions to manage for a healthy soil, the producer wins and all of society wins. And I think that's probably the most critical message because as producers have gotten inspired by this message and they start adopting these systems, that's where we really get change. And that adoption has been spreading and frankly, exponentially spreading in a lot of places and that's really exciting.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (21:05)
I think that's the most important part. We as NRCS can help with that. So if you are a producer out there and you're interested in soil health, walk into your local field office and start a conversation once we can do that again. Right now we have a lot of online materials that are available. We've been, for example, doing conversations on soil health series, that's something you can find on our agency YouTube where you can hear about the kinds of work that our field staff are doing across the country, providing trainings, working with partners, et cetera.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (21:39)
There's a lot of resources that we provide that anybody can have access to. There are a lot of resources we provide even virtually right now. We provide on-the-land assistance still even during those times, although in a modified way. So we're there to support you; your local partners are there to support you. I think the soil health message is really increasing and we're learning more and what we're learning as we're learning is there are more and more benefits some of which we weren't aware of or weren't aware of how great they are. And there's just so much opportunity to use soil health management systems for a whole variety of positive benefits for everyone involved.

John Mesko: (22:21)
Well, that's very well said, Bianca. I have to say, you've articulated all the things in this podcast that excite me about the work that I do and the potential that we have as a community of folks who are trying to advocate for and influence producers and the entire community to focus on soil health. That's the motivation and that's the great potential that is there for some of those societal changes that you talk about, really is a powerful motivator for all of us that are doing this work. I certainly appreciate you joining me today on the podcast, Bianca. Certainly, thank you for your work and the work that you do leading the Soil Health Division and all the work that the division is accomplishing there. So I appreciate the chance to visit with you, thank you very much.

Bianca Moebius-Clune: (23:14)
Thank you very much. Really appreciate the chance to visit with everybody. And take care of everybody, stay safe, this has been great. All the best to you all.