NM Healthy Soil Pgm
Growing Roots: How the Healthy Soil Program Works for New Mexico Farmers and Land Managers
by Christina Allday-Bondy and Isabelle Jenniches
We are at a critical time for agriculture and the environment. The realities of extreme weather events, conflicts over water, the blight of rural communities, and diminishing natural resources are bearing down on all New Mexicans, with farmers and ranchers at the forefront of these serious problems. Economically pushed to the brink, farmer suicides have reached an alarming rate. The average age of a New Mexico farm operator is now 60.5 years, the second oldest average for an industry in the country. Where 25 or so years ago farmers received 70 cents of the food dollar, today they receive 6 cents. We should find these facts alarming. Do you know anyone who doesn’t eat?
At the same time, awareness that soil stewardship can be part of the solution to the climate crisis has been rising, as reflected in several mainstream media articles this past year. New approaches, mutually beneficial for agriculture and the environment, are gaining traction. Agriculturalists are looking for ways to improve their soil, but they require know-how, sustained technical assistance, help in overcoming institutional barriers, financial incentives, and risk mitigation. Trying a new approach to growing crops or livestock when the weather is already unpredictable risks that hair’s edge of financial well-being most fall within.
The New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group formed in the fall of 2018, with the goal of significantly accelerating soil-health stewardship in the state. By addressing the prime challenges of inadequate soil-health education, lack of financial incentives, and prevailing institutional barriers, we succeeded in passing the New Mexico Healthy Soil Act in the spring of 2019. As authors of the bill, we brought together an extensive coalition of more than a hundred food- and agriculture-related organizations, as well as environmental groups and dozens of farms and ranches. With this supportive network, the bill had bipartisan support in the house, received unanimous backing in the senate, and was signed into law by the governor on April 2.
Based on five proven soil-health principles, the Healthy Soil Act establishes a voluntary incentives program and a robust support system. Land managers are offered access to soil-health testing, education, and training, as well as financial and technical assistance. A research component, a soil-health champions network, and training for technical service providers round out the bill. Implementation on the ground is facilitated through Soil & Water Conservation Districts and other local entities, including pueblos, tribes, and acequia and land-grant communities.
The New Mexico Department of Agriculture is tasked with executing the act, including a comprehensive soil-health education package and a user-friendly grant program, which launched in August 2019. The application period for the first round of farmer and rancher assistance and education programs closed with 84 applications for assistance grants totaling $1.37 million from an available fund of $175,000. Data from education and outreach funding has not yet been tabulated.
Moving forward into 2020, we are supporting an increase in state funding to the Healthy Soil Program, building the soil-health champions network, and continuing to raise awareness of soil-health benefits. Our main focus is to serve New Mexico land managers, as they are key to creating greater soil health on our working lands. To that end, we are working closely with agricultural advocacy groups and directly with farmers and ranchers. We are committed to ensuring equity in all our work. The Healthy Soil Program explicitly enables pueblos and tribes, as well as acequias and land-grant communities, to access funding and prioritizes small farms and ranches, young farmers, veterans, and projects that benefit socially or economically disadvantaged communities.
While we have focused the Healthy Soil Act on agricultural land managers, anyone who manages property can improve their soil’s health, contributing to carbon capture and simultaneously building the soil sponge, simply by following the soil-health principles: 1) keep the ground covered, with plants or mulch, to reduce evaporation and to keep the soil cool; 2) minimize inputs like chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides to prevent damage to the soil’s ecosystem and to save money; 3) maximize biodiversity by increasing both numbers and types of plants; 4) keep a living root system by encouraging year-round plant life; 5) employ animals, including earthworms, to cycle nutrients.
To learn more, visit our website, where you may also join our mailing list. We will not overload your email, but during the legislative session we will send action alerts. We would sincerely appreciate your support as we seek to increase funding for the Healthy Soil Program. Public voices were key to bipartisan legislative support last year.
Isabelle Jenniches is a skilled community organizer with firsthand experience working on the Healthy Soil Program in California and facilitating farmer-to-farmer education. She serves on the board of the NM Food and Agriculture Policy Council (NMFAPC) and is part of the National Healthy Soils Policy Network. Christina Allday-Bondy has been an NMFAPC member for several years. She also serves as an associate supervisor with the Edgewood Soil and Water Conservation District and was appointed to the Estancia Basin Water Planning Committee by Bernalillo County. Both women credit their grandparents for their lifelong interest in agriculture and gardening.