The Female Soil Health Advocate

A persuasive soil health advocate can show a neighbor a field and explain what happened there. A producer who hosts a field walk has to make the observations understandable to people with different crops, soils and equipment. The question to ask before scheduling the event is what someone could learn in forty minutes that would help her make a better decision at home. A slideshow about soil can have sixty slides. It still has to compete with an actual place where somebody's boots can get dirty.

“Soil health: the ground beneath my feet is the business plan.”

Run a field walk around a specific question

Choose a question your guests can investigate at two sites, such as how surface cover differs between two comparable areas. Check access, walking distance, footing, bathrooms and a rain plan. Tell people what equipment or clothing they will need. Invite your conservation district or Extension educator to help explain the demonstration and to identify observations that are useful in your region. The USDA NRCS soil health educator guide offers lesson material on soil structure, infiltration, moisture and related measurements.

Be plain about what the comparison shows

Label the two areas on a map and share their known management history. Explain whether slope, crop and recent rainfall differ. Separate observations made that day from conclusions about long-term performance. If an area looks different since you changed management, tell visitors what else changed around the same time. Encourage them to ask what would be necessary to test the same question on their farms. Some visitors will have questions about the rent and some will ask about the seed. Both are legitimate soil health questions if they determine who can act.

Make the discussion useful for more operators

Invite a woman managing a farm of a different size to describe a decision she has actually made. Ask her beforehand what figures she is comfortable sharing and give her the first opportunity to answer questions about her own work. A tenant might explain who pays for planting and who benefits from an improvement, while an owner might discuss how she thinks about equipment capacity and contractors. Use name tags with each participant's role if they want one. It saves everyone the trouble of explaining who made the decision when the person who made it is standing three feet away.

Send participants home with a first step

Provide a one-page handout naming the question, method, observations and the relevant local contact. Include one inexpensive way to follow up, such as arranging a conservation office visit or recording the location of a recurring problem. Give attendees a way to join a future walk with their own observations and permission to decline photographs or public identification. A month or season later, ask what they tried or why they decided to wait. Use the answers to plan the next gathering. The strongest case for a practice is a producer who can explain the decision to another producer after everyone has gone home.