TY - JOUR T1 - Stimulating soil health within Nebraska's Natural Resources Districts JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 88A LP - 93A DO - 10.2489/jswc.2020.0512A VL - 75 IS - 4 AU - Morgan Wirth-Murray AU - Andrea Basche Y1 - 2020/07/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/75/4/88A.abstract N2 - Improving soil health is increasingly recognized by farmers, researchers, policymakers, and agribusiness as a solution to a number of challenges facing agriculture, including rising soil degradation, growing climate change risks, and declining water quality (FAO 2011; Webb et al. 2017; Zimnicki et al. 2020). As a result of this additional focus on soil health, a number of new policy initiatives are being developed to support increased funding and capacity for soil health–related practices. This includes federal policies, through mechanisms such as the farm bill, which designate funding for national conservation programs to address natural resource concerns, of which soil health is one of many (Harrigan and Charney 2019). At present, these programs represent greater than US$6 billion spent annually and are organized into various initiatives such as working lands programs, land retirement, easements, partnerships, and grants (CRS 2019). These dollars are distributed at the state level based on local resource needs and other technical considerations, through the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and/or their partner organizations (USDA ERS 2019; USDA NRCS 2020). In addition to federal support for soil health, there are a growing number of statewide initiatives; for example, the Nebraska legislature recently passed a bill to support the creation of a “Healthy Soils Task Force,” a group of agricultural leaders in the state who are developing a roadmap for future soil health–related work in the state (NDA 2019). It is important to more closely consider the implementation of soil health–related programs, particularly at a local level, given increasing interest and investments.Nebraska is the fourth ranking US … ER -