Healthy Soils Action Plan Released ☀ Farm Bill for the Climate!
RELEASED – An Action Plan for Healthy Soils In Mass. – Now let’s fund it!
By Marty Dagoberto Driggs, NOFA/Mass Policy Director
Image credit: NRCS MA
The long-awaited Massachusetts Healthy Soils Action Plan was released on the final day of the Baker administration in January. This monumental effort marks Massachusetts as a national leader in advancing soil health practices by becoming the first state to commission a statewide plan which covers all land uses and soil types. It is the result of the participation and support of a broad coalition of stakeholders and presents a roadmap for policymakers and land managers to scale out climate-smart soil practices.
“All our landscapes hold the potential to become more resilient and to even mitigate climate change. Soils are the world’s second-largest active store of carbon after oceans, and the amount of carbon that they can store is influenced by human management. With coordinated action, the capacity of soils to store carbon, infiltrate water, store water, and resist erosion can be protected and increased, providing a critical buffer against climate impacts.” – Caro Roszell, American Farmland Trust
We look forward to working with Governor Healey’s administration: Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer, Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) Secretary Rebecca Tepper, Agriculture (MDAR) Commissioner Ashley Randle (promoted last week – congratulations!) and other officials in implementing the recommendations of the Plan. We can count on our legislative supporters, led by our healthy soils champions Senator Jo Comerford and Rep. Paul Schmid, to provide the proper support for these initiatives. And, of course, we need our grassroots movement to continue speaking up for funding for the Massachusetts Healthy Soils Program.
Action: Please contact your state legislators in support of Healthy Soils. Make sure they know about the release of the Healthy Soils Action Plan (you can send them the below article), and ask them to support future funding requests for a Massachusetts Healthy Soils Program.
As outlined in this writeup by Caro Roszell, Soil Health Specialist at American Farmland Trust titled “An Action Plan for Healthy Soils in Massachusetts” (Feb 24th, 2023):
The Healthy Soils Action Plan provides evidence-based recommendations that help people better protect, restore, and manage the soils of Forests, Wetlands, Agriculture, Recreational and Ornamental Landscapes, and Impervious and Urbanized Land (see Map 1.1 from the Healthy Soils Action Plan, p. 10). The Plan’s recommendations provide pathways for:
- Protecting the diversity and productivity of the Commonwealth’s natural and working lands
- Assisting cities and towns in building resilience to natural hazards and climate change
- Achieving the ambitious and necessary goals of Massachusetts’ Global Warming Solutions Act
Among the Plan’s topline recommendations are conserving forest parcels, updating forest management practices to protect forest soils, enrolling existing agricultural production acres in soil health management planning, funding a statewide Soil Health Program, and developing post-construction soil performance standards for development sites.
Please take action to support the development of a Mass. Healthy Soils Program by alerting your state legislators to the release of this plan and asking them to support upcoming budget appropriations for healthy soils in Massachusetts. To make it easy, we set up this “click and send” page, to help you send a quick message.
You can also read more about the soil health initiatives of NOFA/Mass, here.
Tell Congress: The next Farm Bill must be a Climate Bill!
Image credit: National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
Things are (actually) moving quickly on the 2023 Farm Bill, so we (YOU) now have a narrow opportunity to help create more biodiverse, equitable, and regenerative farms, increase soil health, reduce fossil fuels and pesticides in farming practices, and promote a climate-resilient, community-based food system.
Please use this form (right now!) asking your congressional Representative and Senator to support a packet of bills endorsed by NOFA which have been proposed for the 2023 Farm Bill. It takes only moments – please use this form to encourage your Congressional delegation to cosponsor these “marker” bills (read more on the action page). Increasing the number of cosponsors builds support for these bills and will make the provisions more likely to end up in the Farm Bill!
At the time of writing, our Policy Director, Marty Dagoberto, is preparing to make a trip down to Washington DC to accompany farmers from Massachusetts who are attending the Farmers For Climate Action – Rally for Resilience, after which they will be meeting with members of the Mass. Congressional delegation. This monumental event will bring together farmers and farm organizations from all over the country with a united request for their members of Congress–make climate change policy a priority in the 2023 Farm Bill!
We look forward to telling you all about it in the April newsletter.
