Many current soil health activities began to emerge in the 1970s (Alexander, 1971). In part, they were accelerated by the 1973 U.S. oil embargo which increased energy and nitrogen (N) fertilizer prices (Warkentin & Fletcher, 1977). Escalating N fertilizer prices led to renewed interest among soil and agronomic researchers regarding how the soil microbial community might be enhanced to help supply crop‐available N rather than continuing to depend on costly fertilizer inputs (Gregorich & Carter, 1997; Tilman, 1998). The Food Security Act of 1985 also introduced new incentives to encourage producers to implement minimum‐ or no‐tillage conservation practices to reduce soil erosion, thus increasing farmer and society focus on the importance of soils for producing the food and fiber humans need and. For maintaining the ecosystems on which all life ultimately depends (National Research Council, 1993).
In contrast to soil quality efforts during the 1990s and early 2000s, a major driver of soil health projects from 2011 to 2020 has been investment by private industry. This can be partially explained by the rapid increase in corporate social responsibility reporting between 2011 and 2020 (Sustainability Reports, 2019). Consumer demand and sustainable, responsible shareholder investment pressures have driven this increase in reporting—which has created a corporate need for transparency in the environmental impact from agricultural production systems.
Increased public awareness of soil health has opened avenues to productive partnerships between industry, governmental, grower and conservation organizations due to the ability to create win‐win‐win scenarios between farm economic, environmental improvement (e.g., water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity) and social outcomes (e.g., AgSolver and EFC Systems development of ‘Profit Zone Manager’ and its incorporation into the FieldAlytics platform for field data management; ANTARES– Enabling Sustainable Landscape Design project linking soil health and the continual improvement of sustainable operating bioenergy supply systems).
A leader in building public‐private‐partnerships focused on soil was the Soil Renaissance which was initiated to reawaken public interest and awareness of the importance of soil health in vibrant, profitable and sustainable natural resource systems. Founded as a Farm Foundation and Noble Research Institute collaboration, it sought to make maintenance and improvement of soil health (https://www.farmfoundation.org/projects/the‐soil‐renaissance‐knowledge‐to‐sustain‐earths‐most‐valuable‐asset‐1873‐d1/) the cornerstone of land use management. The Soil Health Partnership (SHP) (https://www.soilhealthpartnership.org/science/) initiated by the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), Walton Family Foundation, Monsanto (Bayer), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Nature Conservancy (TNC) in 2014 was another leader. Soil Renaissance endeavors have been carried on through the formation of the Soil Health Institute which has provided leadership for a North American project to evaluate soil health measurements (Norris et al., 2020). Meanwhile, the SHP has focused on using science and data to work directly with farmers to adopt practical agricultural practices including (i) cover crops, (ii) conservation tillage, and (iii) advanced nutrient management to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of the farm. Administered by the NCGA, the partnership has more than 220 working farms enrolled in 15 states and one Canadian province. Collectively SHP, SHI, and other regional, state and local partnerships have created an exponential increase in recognition and adoption of soil and crop management practices that can protect, improve, and sustain our fragile soil, water, and air resources.
Many additional soil health projects, partnerships, and investment opportunities have arisen across the United States (e.g., The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator, or IN2, The Soil Coalition initiated by Rabobank, a.s.r. and Vitens, and S2G Ventures). The IN2, a technology incubator and platform co‐administered by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), was initiated with six startups focused on agriculture technology solutions, while S2G’s portfolio companies are on a mission to better align the food system to meet changing consumer demands. Collectively, these partnerships and projects have sent farmer and consumer market demand signals across the entire agricultural supply chain. Subsequently, soil health products and services have followed the market demand signals. For example: General Mills now brands products with information regarding soil health and carbon sequestration (General Mills, 2020); BASF began focusing on soil health when they launched Poncho Votivo 2.0 a treatment designed to protect corn seeds and increase microbial activity in the soil (BASF, 2020); and Nutrien Ltd, an agricultural retail company that distributes potash, nitrogen, and phosphate products worldwide for agricultural, industrial, and feed customers. Nutrien which serves the agriculture industry worldwide, purchased Waypoint Analytical, Inc.—a soil science company—in 2018 to expand soil health analyses for farmers (Nutrien Ltd., 2018). These investments as well as those by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Midwest Row Crop Collaborative (MWRCC), National Wheat Foundation, Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Minnesota Corn Growers Association, and Iowa Corn Growers Association at the regional, state and local level have created partnerships supporting an exponential increase in recognition and adoption of soil and crop management practices that can protect, improve, and sustain our fragile soil, water, and air resources.
Historically, a significant soil health development during the 1980s and 1990s was the Canadian publication entitled “The Health of Our Soil” (Acton & Gregorich, 1995) which was one of the first broad‐scale, organized efforts to provide land managers information on implementing SH‐improving practices. Following those Canadian efforts, several U.S. soil scientists developed a definition of soil quality and recommended assessment methods to characterize how tillage and other crop management decisions were affecting soil resources (e.g., Doran et al., 1994; Doran & Jones, 1996; Karlen et al., 1997). The importance of soil biology was recognized as integral to improving the understanding and measurement of soil quality, but optimum methods to assess soil microbial communities were still being developed (Pankhurst et al., 1997). As the capacity to quantify soil biology indicators improved, discussions of SQ were replaced by the term soil health which was used to communicate to both producers and consumers the importance of understanding and managing soil as a living ecosystem. Consistent with that messaging, the NRCS ultimately defined soil health as “the continued capacity of the soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that supports plants, animals, and humans” (USDA‐NRCS, 2019a).
The purpose and scope for this two‐volume series (I. Approaches to Soil Health Analysis and II. Laboratory Methods for Soil Health Assessment) are to review advancements in soil health since Defining Soil Quality for a Sustainable Environment (Doran et al., 1994) and Methods for Assessing Soil Quality (Doran & Jones, 1996) were published 25 yr ago. Our goal for Volume 1 is to provide agricultural and conservation communities an update that will help identify appropriate soil health indicators for various soil processes important for agriculture, forest, and reclamation functions. Volume 2 provides standardized, science‐based guidelines for sampling and procedures for assessing soil organic carbon (SOC), aggregate stability and compaction, pH and salinity, nutrient availability, as well as microbial processes, diversity, and community structure. Numerous scientific publications and technical outreach activities have contributed to the evolution of soil health and are cited in the various chapters. Four relatively recent examples are Basche and DeLonge (2017) who focus on soil hydrologic effects of continuous living covers, Congreves et al. (2015) who reported on long‐term impacts of tillage and crop rotations on soil health, McDaniel et al. (2014) who used a meta‐analysis to examine crop diversity effects on soil microbial biomass and soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics, and Turmel et al. (2015) who quantified crop residue management effects on soil health. Collectively,