Deepening our scientific understanding of soil health

After a slow start to the planting season with cold and wet weather across much of the Midwest, spring planting pushed into late May at my farm in Illinois. And while the early conditions were not ideal, I was thankful for a few favorable weather windows (and some long days) to complete corn and soybean planting.

I’ve always found the spring to be a good time to reset and reconsider new focus areas for the farm during the growing season. This year, I am taking a closer look at soil health.

Soil – the foundation of our global food production system – is among the most diverse and complex habitats on earth. When I grab a handful of soil, I am holding billions of individual microorganisms. There are likely tens of thousands of different types of bacteria, fungi and other single-celled organisms in my hand. Each microbe has evolved a unique way of making a living in soils. But together, they are doing the critical work of breaking down residues, recycling nutrients and competing with pathogens. As a farmer committed to improving the health of my soil, this complexity is humbling and shows how sophisticated soil management can be.

As farmers, we are stewards of our land and our soil, ensuring it can be preserved and enhanced for the next generation. We are careful observers of what works on our individual fields and can sense when we are making progress in improving our soil. Yet, there is much to learn. Scientists are still unraveling the diverse life in soils. Gaining a deeper understanding of this science can translate into insights that help farmers make better decisions – which is what we are focused on at Syngenta.

We have several exciting new soil health initiatives underway, looking to better understand the impact our technologies have on soil and identify which new practices support healthy soils.

Why is this work important? I see soil as the nexus where climate goals and production agriculture meet. If soil isn’t healthy, it exasperates the stress crops face from weather extremes and disease. With 33% of land moderately to highly degraded due to erosion, salinization, compaction, acidification and chemical pollution, a deeper understanding of soil health is needed. As we rebuild the soil, we rebuild capacity to prevent nutrient loss, the ability to hold moisture and remove carbon from the atmosphere. And we increase productivity for farmers.

But the practices associated with soil health and regenerative agriculture – including minimizing soil disturbance through low or no till, minimizing synthetic inputs, use of cover crops, crop rotation and diversification – require significant changes to many farmers’ operations. That’s why Syngenta is uncovering science-based solutions to make it easy for farmers to adopt practices beneficial to soil health. I’m piloting some of these new approaches on my farm with the goal of exploring their benefits and limitations firsthand.

I will share more over the coming months about the practices, technologies and operations I am testing to gain a better understanding of my soil profile and what it takes to make the shift toward more regenerative farming. I look forward to sharing what we learn through the process – because innovation related to soil will be a massive opportunity for farmers and society.