Land Core Newsletter - December 2020
Dear friends and colleagues,
We wanted to take a moment to wish you a wonderful holiday season. We hope this season brings you time to celebrate family, community and our common connections, whether near or far.
Through these uncertain times, your support has allowed us to stay at the forefront of the national conversation about soil health as a real way forward for our country, and our world.
Together, we are part of a sea-change moment of awareness about the importance of healthy soils, not only for our farms to survive and for rural and urban communities alike to thrive, but also as an essential tool for a healthy, resilient and equitable food system for all.
We'll be taking some time between December 25 - January 4 to rest, regenerate and regroup for what we hope will be a brighter new year for all!
Take good care.
With gratitude,
The Land Core team
Recent Land Core Highlights (a little holiday reading)
Land Core presents to Biden - Harris USDA Transition Team: On December 16, our Executive Director, Aria McLauchlan, presented soil health policy recommendations to the Biden-Harris Transition: Agency Review Team for the United States Department of Agriculture, alongside diverse colleagues convened by the American Sustainable Business Council. The incoming administration has an enormous opportunity to advance policies and critical infrastructure for the scaled adoption of soil health and regenerative agriculture. We were encouraged by the team's response and stand ready to support the incoming administration.
Review Aria's comments here or revisit Land Core's original soil-health policy recommendations here.
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UC Berkeley Food Institute Report: Land Core comments in recently released report "Redefining Value and Risk in Agriculture: Policy and Investment Solutions to Scale the Transition to Regenerative Agriculture". Our Director of Strategy, Harley Cross, is quoted saying: "There’s a lack of pragmatism currently embedded into the (risk management) system. If the RMA and finance sector could quantify that difference [in risk], they’d have to admit they're throwing money away at the cost of taxpayers and investors."
Dive in to the report.
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Land Core in Agri-Pulse: "Carbon sequestration takes some years to start measuring,” McLauchlan said in a recent Agri-Pulse interview on leveraging the risk market for scaling regenerative agriculture, “but a better loan rate, or flexible loan terms, based on a soil health practice management plan, is something that can be offered to a farmer up front.”
Read more from the Land Core blog: "Perspective shift. Why "risk", not carbon markets, might fund a soil health renaissance."
If you haven’t already, please consider making your end-of-year contribution to help us continue advancing federal policies and programs that create value for farmers, businesses and communities.
We are incredibly grateful for your support! 🌱