Soil Health Institute's video: Dr LaKisha Odom: Determining Effective Measurements of Soil Health

Dr. LaKisha Odom, Scientific Program Director at the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, presented “Determining Effective Measurements of Soil Health” to introduce the Measurement, Standards, & Assessment session of Soil Health Institute’s 2020 Annual Meeting. In her presentation, Dr. Odom discussed how to use data to benefit the agricultural sector. Freeing up data, or alternatively, establishing data ownership, is a critical step to distributing data to farmers. A discussion is needed to determine how to overcome the challenges facing agricultural data management and usage to deliver the most value to farmers. FFAR, in partnership with several other organizations, has hosted webinars to move this discussion forward, including a virtual conference September 24-25, 2020. Soil health leaders envision a world where every farmer and rancher deploys climate-smart solutions on every acre. The Foundation for Food and Agriculture research, in partnership with the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance and the World Farming Organization, has set a bold goal for U.S. agriculture: to achieve net negative greenhouse gas emissions through coordination and collaboration. Bridging the gap between scientific data and farmer adoption is needed to achieve current sustainability and climate change mitigation goals, and only through broad cooperation can this bottleneck be addressed. Soil Health: The Foundation for Regenerative Agriculture, the 5th Annual Meeting of the Soil Health Institute, was held July 30-31, 2020, as a virtual forum. Soil Health: The Foundation for Regenerative Agriculture advanced the opportunity to address climate change, water quality, food production, biodiversity, and many other pressing issues by improving soil health. Presentations addressed the actionable potential of soil health, including preliminary suggestions on how the agricultural industry can measure soil function in the future and the role of farmers and ranchers in combating global climate change and its impacts. FOR FURTHER RESEARCH For more information on Soil Health Institute measurement of 124 long-term research sites, visit: https://soilhealthinstitute.org/north-american-project-to-evaluate-soil-health-measurements/ For more information on the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, visit: https://foundationfar.org/ For webinars hosted by Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, visit https://foundationfar.org/?event=unlocking-the-agricultural-data-revolution&event_date=2020-09-24