Our June 2026 National Network meeting brought us together to share strategies for advancing soil health policy through implementation improvements, administrative actions, existing funding streams, coalition-building, and other low/no-cost approaches to supporting the implementation of soil health practices and to build political support for future policy opportunities. What follows is a distillation of themes and suggestions based on these conversations.
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Does this spark additional ideas? Have resources/examples to share?
Email [email protected]
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Related resources:
Funding Mechanisms for State Healthy Soils Programs: An Idea Bank for Organizers
Healthy Soils Policy: Types & Strategic Value
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“How do we continue advancing soil health in difficult fiscal environments?”
1. Improve and Leverage Existing Programs
Focus on opportunities to strengthen existing initiatives by improving implementation, targeting, and accessibility.
- Improve practice eligibility and funding priorities within existing conservation programs.
- Influence agency discretion around how conservation dollars are allocated.
- Incorporate soil health criteria into resilience, disaster assistance, and conservation programs.
- Establish farmer advisory boards to improve program design and implementation.
- Examine existing regulations and policies for unintended barriers to soil health adoption.
- Improve outreach and participation among historically underserved producers.
- Work with Soil and Water Conservation Districts to improve their programs
- Advocate for greater investment in local conservation delivery systems, including Soil and Water Conservation Districts.
2. Align Soil Health with Existing Public Priorities
Soil health provides solutions to many intersecting challenges, and will gain traction when connected to broader issues that already have political support, public attention, or funding.
- Frame soil health as a water quality strategy.
- Position soil health as a drought resilience and disaster preparedness solution.
- Connect soil health to flood mitigation and erosion prevention.
- Link soil health to public health, nutrition, and "food as medicine" initiatives.