Land Core Newsletter - May 2023
Image Credit: Marko Blažević
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We hope you're all getting ready for summer! We are excited to be working on building support for soil health in the upcoming Farm Bill and are happy to report that over 155 organizations representing leading local, state and national partners from the farming, business and non-profit sectors have now signed on to support one of our highest priorities, the DEFER Act.
We have extended the deadline to sign on to the support letter to Monday June 5th.
Please consider joining the growing list of supporters for this Farm Bill proposal at the intersection of conservation and credit. The final list of supporters will be made public on Monday. Please inquire with any questions.
Read on for more updates, hiring opportunities, educational events and more.
Warmly,
The Land Core Team
Farm Bill Advocacy: Have Your Voice Heard
House Agriculture Committee members have a deadline of Friday, June 9 to submit Farm Bill proposals to the Committee. It’s so important that Agriculture Committee members hear from their constituents at this time.
Find out here if your representative is on the Agriculture Committee, and contact them to voice your support for soil health in the 2023 Farm Bill!
You can also submit your ideas through the public House Agriculture Committee Farm Bill portal!
Should you choose to support the DEFER Act, feel free to use the language found here. A few other proposals to consider supporting can be found here.
ICYMI: Give Input on Soil Health on Public Lands
Public Comment Period: Future of Public Lands Management
On April 4, 2023, the Department of Interior (DOI) published a proposed Public Lands Rule to direct the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to “protect intact landscapes, restore degraded habitat, and make wise management decisions based on science and data.” This proposal creates a potential opportunity to restore and protect soil health on the vast acreage managed by BLM. Learn more here and here, and join nearly 70,000 others in providing comments in the Federal Register by June 20th!
Farmer Opportunity: Support Cover Crop Data Research
Calling Midwest-based farmers! As part of our risk model project* to quantify the risk reduction value of specific soil health practices, we are gathering field data on cover cropping! This will help us train our models to detect cover crops. We are looking for information on fields with a history of cover cropping in MN, WI, MI, OH, IL, MO, SD, IN, and IA.
Please help us by completing this ~10-minute survey, or sharing with farmers in your network.
*Our goals include helping farmers capture more of the value of implementing soil health practices such as cover crops, no-till, and diverse crop rotations, and increasing the adoption of these practices by informing better public and private policies, especially from agricultural lenders and insurers.
Please contact kangogo@landcore.org if you have questions.
Risk Model: New Team Members and Collaborations
Our Risk Model Project Partner, UC Berkeley, is welcoming a new postdoc on the project this September: Jiajie Kong is a Ph.D. candidate in Statistics from the Department of Statistics at University of California, Santa Cruz, specializing in both frequentist and Bayesian statistics. Under the guidance of Dr. Robert Lund, Jiajie has been focusing on developing novel models to accommodate count times series, censored time series, and spatial-temporal problems. His works produce applied statistical and machine learning models to deliver projects in climatology, astronomy, and object tracking. He received his M.S. in Mathematics from California State University, Northridge in 2016 and his B.S. in Economics from Guangdong, China in 2009. Excitingly, he will join the UC Berkeley research team this September.
Welcome Rice University summer Ph.D students: Tyler Bagwell and Tripp Roberts, both Ph.D students in Statistics at Rice University, join our risk modeling team over the summer to support statistical analysis of the risk mitigation impacts of soil health practices! Thank you, Tyler and Tripp!
From the Schmidt Center for Data Science and the Environment (DSE): Land Core and Schmidt DSE are engaged in a collaborative exploration of possibilities for refining tools and interfaces surrounding Land Core's risk score model.
Reminder: We're Hiring
Statistician (Postdoc Research Associate): two-year position, for statistical modeling and analysis to advance research related to the risk reducing benefits of soil health practices. Land Core is the employer; the position will be closely supervised by the Professor of Statistics at Rice University. Remote work can be negotiated.
Agricultural Economist (Postdoc Research Associate): two-year position, for agricultural economics analysis to advance research related to the risk reducing benefits of soil health practices. Land Core is the employer; the position will be closely supervised by the Professor of Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, University of Arkansas.
Senior Policy Advisor: Remote, Washington D.C. area preferred. Land Core is seeking an experienced, pragmatic professional with a solid understanding of U.S. federal agriculture policy, both at the agency level (USDA) and in Congress. This person will help us advance our development of policy principles and socialization through education and outreach to congressional members, the USDA, and private sector partners, around solving the problems related to scaling the adoption of soil health focused agriculture in the US.
Programs Manager: Full-time, remote. We’ll soon have a position listed to support the day-to-day management and execution of our soil health Policy, Risk Model & Education programs. We’re seeking candidates with strong project management and communications skills, ability to work effectively with a wide range of partners, and demonstrable passion for our mission. An understanding of soil health systems is a very strong plus.
Interested candidates, please inquire or find more details & apply:
Educational Events
Upcoming Free Webinar: The Cost of Soil Erosion
In this installment of No-Till Farmer’s Ask the Operator webinar series, farmer Loran Steinlage of West Union, Iowa, leads a panel discussion about the Illinois dust storm and cost of soil erosion to farmers and society.
Webinar Date: Friday, June 2, at 7 a.m. CT
The Soil Sponge Workshop: Summer 2023
Didi Pershouse, author of “Ecology of Care” and globally-recognized speaker and educator, leads her next installment of the virtual, participatory workshop, which provides a deep dive on the Soil Sponge and opportunities for discussion on “How Biology Regulates the Climate and Provides Flood, Drought, and Wildfire Resilience”. Join the international cohort (or sign up to be notified about future educational opportunities).
Date: June 6th to July 3rd (on Mondays)
What We're Reading
World Wildlife Fund 2022 Plowprint Report
In its seventh year, WWF’s 2022 Plowprint Report reports nearly 1.8 million acres of grasslands were destroyed across the US and Canadian Great Plains in 2020 alone, contributing to a total of nearly 10 million acres plowed across the region since 2016. Read the report and related policy brief.
Biden-Harris Administration Announces Availability of $500 Million for Improved Regional Conservation Partnership Program to Better Support Partners, Producers as Part of Investing in America Agenda
May 19, 2023 | By: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Press Release
Putting regenerative solutions in the Farm Bill would benefit us all
Opinion piece makes the case for policies that support soil health and resilience through the 2023 Farm Bill.
May 9, 2023 | By: Tenzin Seldon, The Hill
Poll: Farmers Overwhelmingly Support Reducing Insurance Costs for Producers Who Plant Cover Crops
A new poll conducted for the NWF showed that 78 percent of U.S. row crop farmers support discount crop insurance premiums for producers who use conservation practices, cover crops, to reduce risk of crop failure.
May 3, 2023 | By: Megnot Mulugeta, NWF
House seeking farm bill feedback
The House Committee on Agriculture wants your input on the next farm bill. It has created an online portal to solicit public feedback. The portal closes June 9.
May 9, 2023 | By: Joshua Baethge, Farm Progress
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