News

It’s with pride and gratitude that we look back and take stock on another momentous year for soil health. Although political deadlock in 2024 pushed the Farm Bill out another year, there is no denying that on the issue of soil health, we saw an exceptional year of growth, including unprecedented bipartisan support for federal policies, as well as increased adoption of soil health practices on farms and ranches across the country.

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Land Core will be expanding its engagement with HHS in the years ahead, supporting the individuals and institutions working to ensure that this emerging soil-centered vision is meaningfully implemented. The potential to reshape national health outcomes through improved food systems grounded in soil health is significant and deserves serious attention.

Happy New Year! We are pleased to share Land Core’s 2023 year-in-review, highlighting organizational accomplishments and progress for the soil health movement. We are immensely grateful to all the farmers, partners, coalition groups, and funders who make this work possible, and we look forward to all 2024 has to offer.

Pilot programs are exploring the opportunity to offer farmers improved financing terms based on their adoption of regenerative agriculture. The goal is to bring an expanded scale via financial incentives structured differently than dollars per acre for adoption.

Insurers offer discounts for avoiding smoking and good driving because these practices are proven to mitigate risk and save them money. So should insurers and agricultural lenders offer farmers that look after their soil a ‘good soil discount’?

Researchers with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture are conducting research examining soil health practices and their impacts on crop risk insurance premiums and other financial factors often faced by farmers. Lawson Connor, an agriculture economist for the Division of Agriculture, is the primary investigator for Arkansas’ involvement in the research. He is joined by researchers from U.C. Berkley and Rice University.

We are thrilled to announce that the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) is awarding a $715,611 Seeding Solutions grant to Land Core to create an unprecedented market-based, actuarially-sound model that can determine the risk-mitigation benefits and related cost savings associated with specific soil health practices. Family foundations are providing matching funds for a total $1,449,611 investment. The model is helping to create the economic rationale for agricultural lenders and insurers to offer financial incentives, such as better terms or lower loan rates and insurance prices to producers adopting good soil health practices.

Today, Land Core, along with a diverse group of 170 farms, businesses, and organizations, submitted a letter to Congressional Agriculture Committee leadership in support of the DEFER Act and its inclusion in the 2023 Farm Bill.

Attention, soil health enthusiasts, farmers, and food and ag policy pros! Land Core, a pioneering non-profit committed to advancing soil health policies and programs in the US, is excited to unveil a transformative upgrade to their Federal Soil Health Bill Tracker. With a focus on making policy information more accessible to all, this user-friendly, dynamic web-based tool brings federal soil health policy to life.

In the past year, we expanded our staff and modeling team members, and deepened our influence in exciting and impactful ways, shaping both the actions and narratives that have focused soil health as being at the center of an independent, resilient agricultural economy.

Thank you for supporting our work in 2022. Here you’ll find a few highlights of what we’ve accomplished together this year!

On September 13, 2022, our Executive Director, Aria McLauchlan, and our Director of Strategy, Harley Cross, participated in a roundtable on "Creating Regenerative Opportunity for Ag Lenders" as part of Green America’s Soil & Climate Alliance (SCA) Virtual “Financing Regenerative Transitions” Roundtable Series. Watch the recording now!

We’re excited to share this recently released recording from the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center conference on “Innovation, Investment and Policy in Regenerative Agriculture”. Last month, our Executive Director, Aria McLauchlan, spoke on the "Policy and Investment in Regenerative Agriculture" panel, alongside an all-star line-up of thought leaders, innovators, soil health experts, policy makers, and financiers from all over the world to discuss goals, policies and opportunities for the rapid adoption of soil health and regenerative agriculture practices.

After almost a year of work, and with the support of many of you in our community, we are proud to help launch Regenerate America™ this week - a campaign for healthy soil in the 2023 Farm Bill. It’s never been more important to rebuild our soils and ensure that the next generations have a better, more resilient future. We hope you'll join the campaign - as individuals, and with your farms, organizations and businesses. Everyone is encouraged & welcome!

April 27 webinar by Land Core’s Aria McLauchlan and Harley Cross presented a foundation for monetizing soil health practices through insurance and lending.

Big news for Land Core's Risk Model: Sarah Manski, PhD Candidate in Statistics at Michigan State University, and our lead analyst on the Land Core Risk Model project, was awarded the inaugural Neogen Land Grant Prize! Congratulations, Sarah!

We're pleased to introduce the newest feature in our Federal Soil Health Bill Tracker! Using the Legislators tab, you can now see your representative's support for soil health at a glance, and find their contact information to share your feedback.

We're thrilled to have been accepted into Invoking the Pause’s (ITP) inaugural Climate Challenge cohort.

We were thrilled to be at Natural Products Expo West this month, (re)connecting with colleagues and partners, and feeling the excitement and momentum behind soil health and regenerative ag, including among brands and consumers. Aria spoke on a panel about policy as a powerful tool for scaling up business solutions.

We’re thrilled to announce two new funding partners this December!

Land Core co-founders, Aria McLauchlan and Harley Cross, are among this year’s “Emerging Leaders in Food & Ag” award winners!

2021 has been an incredible year for the soil health movement, and Land Core is proud to be at its forefront. Our 2021 Year in Review is a reflection and celebration of what we’ve been able to accomplish together.

How can innovations in soil health data help catalyze healthy soil policy at the state and federal levels? Our Executive Director, Aria McLauchlan, joined Arohi Sharma of NRDC, Dr. Bianca Moebius-Clune of AFT, Dr. Dorn Cox of OpenTEAM & Jeff Schahczenski of NCAT to discuss "Soil Health Innovations in Public Policy" during NCAT's first annual Soil Health Innovations Conference.

In this series of conversations, our co-founder & executive director, Aria McLauchlan, chats with Carrie Dorr (seasoned entrepreneur & founder of Pure Barre, and Land Core board member!) about regenerative agriculture & soil health, Land Core’s work, and ways to get involved.

In this wide ranging discussion with NCAT's Agricultural and Natural Resource Economist Jeff Schahczenski, Land Core’s co-founders talk about our work, theory of change and their backgrounds, and take a deep dive into the Land Core Risk Model and its potential to transform US Agriculture.

We’re absolutely thrilled to announce that Land Core has been awarded a generous 3-year operating grant from the Mighty Arrow Family Foundation to support our federal policy and advocacy work to advance soil health for a resilient food system that delivers healthy food to all.

Compeer Financial and Land Core have announced a new partnership in which the member-owned Farm Credit cooperative will support the soil health non-profit’s cross-sector initiative to build a predictive model of the risk-mitigating benefits of soil health practices… “The Land Core Risk Model will give financial service providers the missing tools they need to quantify the risk reduction benefits of soil health practices,” said Harley Cross, Co-Founder and Director of Strategy at Land Core.

Land Core’s co-founders, Aria and Harley, speak with TEDx discussing why our future depends on our soils; and how Land Core works across government, research, and the private sector to leverage our political and financial infrastructure to rebuild American agriculture into a force for regeneration.

We’re pleased to introduce our new and improved bill tracker! This major update brings our tracker from a spreadsheet to an interactive tool with search and filtering features, available for use on desktop and mobile.

We are proud to announce that Aria McLauchlan, Co-Founder & Executive Director, of Land Core has been selected as a 2018 Stone Barns Exchange Fellow.