The hype around soil health

There is a lot of hype around soil health these days. As a result, the farming industry is under pressure to assess the health of soils in order to improve productivity and facilitate the growing link between soil health and sustainable agriculture. This pressure on the farmers in turn places pressure on the researcher who has to figure out the applicable combination of soil health indicators that a farmer can relate to and understand. I have been fortunate to interact with a lot of farmers and I have come to realize that each farmer has his/her own thoughts as to what is interesting when it comes to scientific research. I have also been fortunate to interact and engage with a lot of scientists/researchers in the field of soil science who have devoted their research to designing soil health assessment techniques for the farmer. Being a researcher myself, I have found it very interesting to be in the same room as the theorist and the practitioner.

There are numerous techniques proposed by different experts that all advocate for soil health and the vast majority come from the United States and New Zealand e.g. Cornell Soil Health Assessment book, USDA-NRCS  Soil Health Assessment, and Visual Soil Assessment book by Graham Shepherd. These techniques are unique, but are applicable in their own way, and all advocate for the same cause, soil health. The challenge for farmers  is sieving through all these techniques at their disposal and finding that one technique which they understand and identify with  – one which is simple and informative enough for them that they would be able to use the results and implement directed management practices on their farm