Resources
UMRI Insights & Ideas
Books, Articles & Related Links
- The Solution to Climate Change is just Below Our Feet
- Ted Talk: The Solution to Climate Change is just Below Our Feet
- A Soil Owner’s Manual – How to Restore and Maintain Soil Health:
- Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth (2013) by Judith Schwartz.
- Water in Plain Sight: Hope for a Thirsty World (2016) and articles
- Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life (2016) by David Montgomery.
- Inspiring Vision For Restoring The Soil That Feeds Us: David Montgomery’s Growing a Revolution
- Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
- Kiss the Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body & Ultimately Save Our World (2017) by Josh Tickell.
- One Woman’s River: A Solo Source-to-Sea Paddle on the Mighty Mississippi (2016) by Ellen Kolbo McDonah.
- The Soil Will Save Us (2014) by Kristin Ohlson:
- This Perennial Land: third crops, blue earth and the road to a restorative agriculture (2010) by Lansing Shepard and Paula Westmoreland:
Landowner Success Stories
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/ia/newsroom/stories/de52cd5a-2e07-48b3-ab58-6b786576529d/
Presentations, Videos & Films
Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with Gabe Brown – Part 1: The 5 Tenets of Soil Health (2017) by Living Web Farms. Gabe tells how he has more than doubled soil organic matter levels on his land and significantly increased the soil’s capacity to infiltrate and hold water. Corn yields at Brown’s farm are higher than the county average, even though he has eliminated use of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides and fungicides, and drastically cut herbicide use. On YouTube at https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=gabe+brown+soil+health&qpvt=Gabe+Brown+soil+health&FORM=VDRE
Soil – From Dirt to Lifeline, TedTalk by Fred Kirschenmann, professor emeritus with the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VObLitSe3K0. Or other great YouTube videos on Soil and Water Stewardship, such as Who Will Farm and How (2014) New York Times Food for Tomorrow Conference panel discussion includes Iowa farmer Seth Watkins, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq0vZpIOiTo
Soil Health and Cover Crops (2017), presentation by Ray Archuleta, a well-known USDA soil scientist, at a meeting sponsored by Albert Lea Seeds in Minnesota, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBnsgzeNIng
Symphony of the Soil film (2012), at http://www.symphonyofthesoil.com/
Web Resources & Related Organizations
- IWLA Clean Water Challenge and monitoring resources at https://www.iwla.org/conservation/water/clean-water-challenge
- IWLA Conservation – Agriculture & the Farm Bill, at https://www.iwla.org/conservation/soils-agriculture/national
- IWLA Conservation – Upper Mississippi, at https://www.iwla.org/conservation/water/regional/upper-mississippi-river
Fishers and Farmers Watershed Partnership, https://fishersandfarmers.org/