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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.