The Philosophy

Embracing Complexity

Read these first:

• Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze — Lifecycle of Emergence: Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale (PUBLICATION)
• Harvard Business Review — Embracing Complexity

Dive further:

• Guardian — How do you go about embracing complexity? It’s complicated
• Mindwalk (MOVIE)
• Discussion of Descartes (MOVIE CLIP)
• Discussion of Interconnected Systems & Our Crisis of Perception (MOVIE CLIP)
• A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System: Ch. 6 — The U.S. Food and Agriculture System as a Complex Adaptive System (BOOK)
• PDF Version of Book
• Sustainable Agriculture Volume 2: Adaptiveness to Enhance the Sustainability of Farming Systems (See comparative chart on pg 47)
• Systems Research for Agriculture Innovative Solutions to Complex Challenges (BOOK)
• Reinventing Organizations (BOOK)
• [PDF] Donella Meadows — Systems Thinking: A Primer (BOOK)
• Donella Meadows — Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System
• Enspiral — 5 Reasons to Build a Network of Small Groups, Rather than a Mass Movement of Individuals
• Ecosystem Services and Beyond: Using Multiple Metaphors to Understand Human-Environment Relationships — Raymond et al (2013)
  • Video Clip
  • Article (See Chart on pg 14)
  • Duplicate Article

Why So Urgent? The 25-Year Time Horizon

Read these first:

• The Nature Conservancy — The Next 25 Years
• UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — Nations Take Forward Global Climate Action at 2016 UN Climate Conference World Leaders Issue Proclamation Underlining ‘Irreversible’ Momentum

Dive further:

• Newsweek — Climate Change Could Cause Half A Million Deaths in 2050, Due to Reduced Food Availability
• Washington Post — Food scarcity caused by climate change could cause 500,000 deaths by 2050, study suggests
• The Lancet — Global and regional health effects of future food production under climate change: a modelling study
• Guardian — More than half a million could die as climate change impacts diet — report
• Independent — Most people alive today set to witness dangerous global warming in their lifetime, scientists warn: Average temperature could rise to two degrees Celsius above the norm by 2050 or ‘even sooner’
• WHO — Climate change and health

What Is Sustainability?

Read these first:

• United Nations Economic Commission for Europe — Sustainable development — concept and action
• Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis — What is Sustainable Agriculture?

Dive further:

• Daniel Christian Wahl — Distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative growth
• UN Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform
• Carol Sanford — What is Regeneration? Part 4 — Singularity
• Center for EcoLiteracy — Applying Ecological Principles

What is biodiversity?

Read these first:

• UN Convention on Biological Diversity — What is Biodiversity?
• UN Convention on Biological Diversity: — Can farming affect biodiversity?

Dive further:

• FAO — Agriculture and Soil Biodiversity
• Rainforest Conservation Fund — Biodiversity
• Eniscuola Energy and Environment — Biodiversity

What are the consequences of declining biodiversity?

Read these first:

• University of Michigan — Ecosystem effects of biodiversity loss could rival impacts of climate change, pollution
• Harvard — Sustaining Life: How Our Health Depends on Biodiversity

Dive further:

• Harvard — Biodiversity & Human Health
• University of Alaska Fairbanks — Decreasing biodiversity affects productivity of remaining plants

What are the benefits of thriving biodiversity?

Read these first:

• ScienceDaily — Diverse soil communities can help offset impacts of global warming (ARTICLE)
• CivilEats — Mapping the Benefits of Farm Biodiversity (ARTICLE)

Dive further:

• Nature: Belowground biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (ARTICLE)
• Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Biodiversity (BOOK)

What is organic?

Read these first:

• FAO — What is Organic Agriculture?
• Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education — What is Organic Farming?

Dive further:

• USDA Organic & Organic 101: What the USDA Organic Label Means

Regenerative Agriculture

Read these first:

• Rodale Institute — Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming
• Scientific American — 3 Big Myths about Modern Agriculture

Dive further:

• Why Regenerative Agriculture
• Regeneration of Our Lands: A Producer’s Perspective | Gabe Brown
• Terra Genesis International — Levels of Regenerative Agriculture
• Terra Genesis International — Learning Portal
• Regeneration International — Educational Facebook Videos, Youtube Videos and Youtube Playlists
• Regeneration International — Andre Leu, President of IFOAM — Organics International and Regeneration International Steering Committee Member talks about the importance of regenerative agriculture (VIDEO)
• Rodale Institute — Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change (VIDEO)
• HuffPost — Regenerative Agriculture and the Dawn of Planetary Engineering
• Guardian — We need regenerative farming, not geoengineering
• A transition from agriculture to regenerative food systems
• Regenerative Food Systems (contents/excerpt)
• Resilience — Regenerative Agriculture: The Transition
• The Healing Power of Regenerative Organic Agriculture
• Regenerative Agriculture Sector Accelerator (RASA) — The RASA Book List & Reader
• Regenerative Agriculture with Ethan Roland Soloviev (Podcast Interview)
• The ever evolving definition of Regenerative Agriculture
• Regenerative Agriculture Redefined

Regenerative Business Economics

Read these first:

• Harvard Business Review — The 7 Laws of Regenerative Enterprises
• Capital Institute — Regenerative Capitalism: How Universal Principles And Patterns Will Shape Our New Economy
• TED — Michael Porter: Why business can be good at solving social problems (VIDEO)

Dive further:

• Guardian — Beyond capitalism and socialism: could a new economic approach save the planet?
• Capital Institute — Regenerative Capitalism (VIDEO)
• Carol Sanford
  • Regenerative Impact Investing (VIDEO)
  • Regenerative Business Summit: Introduction to Seven First Principles (VIDEO)
  • Carol Sanford’s Videos on Vimeo (VIDEO)
  • 2016 Regenerative Business Prize Report
• The Business of Being Regenerative
• Regenerative Business Design by Terra Genesis — Kiss The Ground (VIDEO)
• 8 Forms of Capital and Nutrients for All (VIDEO)
  • Appleseed Permaculture — 8 Forms of Capital
  • Resilience — Permaculture and the 8 Forms of Capital (Podcast Interview)
  • 2015 International Permaculture Conference — The 8 Forms of Capital (VIDEO)
  • Ethan Roland — What permaculture can teach us about prosperity (PODCAST)
• At the Intersection of Money and Meaning (VIDEO)
• The Regrarians Platform®
• Greenhorns — Regenerative Enterprise
• Forbes — Best Practices — Aren’t
• Harvard Business Review — Research: Why Best Practices Don’t Translate Across Cultures
• 50 by 50 — Learning + Design Session: The Role of Impact Investors in Taking Employee Ownership to Scale
• Kellogg Foundation — The Business Case for Racial Equity
• Terra Genesis International — Regenerative Enterprise: 4 Years Later
• 8 Forms of Capital and Nutrients for All (VIDEO)
  • Appleseed Permaculture — 8 Forms of Capital
  • Resilience — Permaculture and the 8 Forms of Capital (Podcast Interview)
  • 2015 International Permaculture Conference — The 8 Forms of Capital (VIDEO)
  • Regenerative Agriculture with Ethan Roland Soloviev (Podcast Interview)
• Harvard Business Review — Creating Shared Value, an HBR interview with Michael Porter (1/2) (VIDEO)
• Harvard Business Review — Creating Shared Value, an HBR interview with Michael Porter (2/2) (VIDEO)
• Deloitte — Introduction: Business ecosystems come of age
• Business Model Canvas & Value Proposition Canvas (VIDEO)

Soil Project Investment Exit Pressures and Medium to Long Term Viability

Read these first:

• Acumen — What is Patient Capital? (VIDEO)
• Patient Capital in an Impatient World

Dive further:

• Forbes — Investor, Activist Seeks To ‘Transform Finance’ For Good (VIDEO)
• Transform Finance — The Transformative Finance Principles
• LIFT Economy — Andrea Armeni: Transforming Finance To Finance Transformation (PODCAST)
• Mission Investors Exchange — Essentials of Impact Investing: A Guide for Small-staffed Foundations
• The Working World: Funding Co-ops with Non-Extractive Capital
• The Working World — The Peer Network is the movement infrastructure for non-extractive finance
• Jacqueline Novogratz: Patient Capitalism (VIDEO)
• Entrepreneur — Raising “Patient Capital” for Your Business How to attract funding from people who don’t expect an immediate return
• ‘Patient’ Capital In Social Entrepreneurship

The Relationship

Regenerative Agriculture: More Land Stewards Making Real Livings

Read these first:

• Guardian — Smallholder farmers are the new global food frontier
• FAO — Factsheet: Smallholders and Family Farmers

Dive further:

• The Permaculture Podcast — Farm School with Miriam Volat
• 50 by 50 — Learning + Design Session: The Role of Impact Investors in Taking Employee Ownership to Scale
• Washington Post — Small vs. large: Which size farm is better for the planet?
• HuffPost — Agroecology and industrial farming: leveling the playing field
• The People’s Farm: Visualizing the Future Potential of UC Berkeley’s Gill Tract as an Agroecological Living Laboratory & Guided Tour (VIDEO)
• FAO — Coping with the food and agriculture challenge: smallholders’ agenda
• UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food — Right to Food
• UN Food security and nutrition and sustainable agriculture

Social Diversity: How Does It Relate to Soil Diversity?

Read these first:

• Soil & Shadow, Food First, and Carbon Cycle Institute — Healthy Soil, Healthy Communities: Opportunities to Advance Environmental Justice and Soil Carbon Sequestration (PUBLICATION)
• Tending a garden is not different from tending a life (VIDEO)

Dive further:

• Food First — Cultivating Gender Justice
• Civil Eats — 6 Food and Farming Success Stories From Native Communities

Why is it important for people and animals to stay on the land?

Read these first:

• Food First — Land Grabs Versus Land Sovereignty
• Guardian — Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history

Dive further:

• BBC — Stampeding buffalo are returning to Canada (VIDEO)
• Grist — The disturbing lack of black organic farmers
• Native American Natural Foods — Buffalo Returns (VIDEO)
• BBC — Stampeding buffalo are returning to Canada (VIDEO)
• HuffPost — #BlackWealthMatters: The 5 Largest U.S. Landowners Own More Land Than All of Black America Combined
• Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SARE) — Land and Power: Sustainable Agriculture and African Americans
• (Historical) Journal of Farm Economics — Who Owns the Agricultural Land in the United States?
• Modern Farmer — So, How Much Land is Foreign Held?
• Via Campesina — Black farmers’ lives matter: Defending African-American land and agriculture in the deep south
• Food First — Unbroken Connection to the Land
• Food First — Land Loss and Racism in North Carolina: The Story of Eddie and Dorothy Wise
• Food First — More Than a Bingo Hall: A Story of Mashpee Land, Food, and Sovereignty
• Black Land Project — Black/Land Stories
• Land for Good: A Landowner’s Guide to Leasing Land for Farming
• New England Farm Leasing Tutorial — See module 2 (pages 5-9)

Future of Agriculture: According to Practitioners

Read these first:

• US News & World Report — The Rapidly Aging U.S. Farmer
• Wageningen University — A farmer’s perspective on the future of agriculture: local innovations in a changing world

Dive further:

• Involving Youth in Conservation Agriculture for a Sustainable Future- A Farmer’s perspective
• TED — Mark Jackson: A personal story about farming and the future of agriculture (VIDEO)
• National Farmers Union — Climate Column
• The Farm Incubator Toolkit:Growing the Next Generation of Farmers
• Cornell — The Seed Farm Grows Next Generation of Farmers

Stories: Communities Being Rebuilt Through Regenerative Practices

Read these first:

• Native American Natural Foods — Buffalo Returns (VIDEO)
• Yes! Magazine — After a Century In Decline, Black Farmers Are Back And On the Rise

Dive further:

• One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts (VIDEO)
• Carol Sanford — Regenerative Impact Investing (VIDEO)
• Yes! Magazine — The Color of Food: How Gardens and Farms Can Help Us Heal From a History of Racism
• Laura Flanders Show — Soul Fire Farm: Feeding the Soul, Growing Community (VIDEO)
• Laura Flanders Show — Free The Land: Shirley Sherrod and Black Land Struggles in the South (VIDEO)
• Laura Flanders Show — The Arc of Justice Trailer — (VIDEO)
• The Splendid Table — To fight a food desert, this Dallas college turned its football field into a farm (Podcast Interview)
• Grassroots Economic Organizing — Black Food Sovereignty Urban, Rural and International Connections
• Ex-NFL star finds new passion in farming (VIDEO)
• Males to Men | Dre Taylor & Males to Men (VIDEO)
  • Aquaponics project to bring fish and vegetables to the urban core (VIDEO)
• Growing Power — A Model for Urban Agriculture (VIDEO)
  • Will Allen On Urban Farming (VIDEO)
• Alternative agrifood projects in communities of color: A civic engagement perspective
• A guerilla gardener in South Central LA (VIDEO)

Enhancing the Social, Economic, and Ecological landscape through land management decisions

Read these first:

• Food First — Race and Corporate Power in the US Food System: Examining the Farm Bill
• M. Kat Anderson: Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources

Dive further:

• Tending the Wild — Kat Anderson (Book)
  • Reviews:
    • Christopher Nyerges discusses “Tending the Wild” by M. Kat Anderson (VIDEO)
    • Weston A. Price Foundation — Book Review
• Ensia — Urban Farming is Booming, But What Does It Really Yield?: The benefits of city-based agriculture go far beyond nutrition
• Civil Eats — Why Food Belongs in Our Discussions of Race
• The Now Age Press — Now Age Conversations: “The Justice of Food” with Karen Washington
• Yes! Magazine — The Color of Food: How Gardens and Farms Can Help Us Heal From a History of Racism
• CounterPunch — Black Farmers’ Lives Matter
• Race Forward — GOOD FOOD AND GOOD JOBS FOR ALL: Challenges and Opportunities to Advance Racial and Economic Equity in the Food System
• UC Berkeley — The Farm Bill Report: Corporate Power and Structural Racialization in the US Food System
• Movement Generation — Ecological Revolution
• WhyHunger — What Ferguson Means for the Food Justice Movement
• Food First — Black Agrarianism: Resistance
• Food First — Survival Pending Revolution: What the Black Panthers can teach the US food movement
• HuffPost — The Black Panther Party: A Food Justice Story
• Food First — Everyone is Downstream
• Food First — The Roots of Black Agrarianism
• Food First — Backgrounder: Dismantling Racism in the Food System
• Food First — Racism and capitalism: Dual challenges for the food movement
• Food First — Ground Shaking? Assessing the FAO’s 2015 International Year of Soils
• Inter-Institutional Network for Food, Agriculture, and Sustainability (INFAS) — Preamble & Statement on Equity in the Food System
• National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) — NSAC Statement on Racial Equity
• National Young Farmers Coalition — Ending Violence Against People of Color in Food and Farming
• Michigan State University — An Annotated Bibliography on Structural Racism Present in the U.S. Food System: Fourth Edition
• SAEA 2016 Conference Decolonizing Foodways Symposium (VIDEO)
• WhyHunger — Facilitating Change in the Food Justice Movement

Regional Momentum and Community

Read these first:

• Impact Investing for Rural Wealth Creation: Investing for financial returns and community impact
• 7 Paths to Development That Bring Neighborhoods Wealth, Not Gentrification

Dive further:

• Excerpt from Next Economy Now podcast interview series — Marjorie Kelly: Democratizing the Economy from the Ground Up
• The Learning/Action Lab for Community Wealth Building
• WealthWorks
• Keeping Wealth Local: Shared Ownership and Wealth Control For Rural Communities

Diverse Ownership

Read these first:

• Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution
• Worker Equity in Food and Agriculture: Practices at the 100 Largest and Most Influential U.S. Companies

The Ecosystem

Basics of Soil Health

Read these first:

• Healthy soil is the real key to feeding the world
• Kiss the Ground — Cover Cropping to build soil health with Jeff Borum (VIDEO)

Dive further:

• Singing Frogs Farm — Singing the Praises of Compost (VIDEO)
• NRCS Adopts Holistic Management

Increasing Biodiversity: Polyculture! (Not Monoculture)

Read these first:

• UN Press Release: Take ‘mosaic’ approach to agriculture, boost support for small farmers, UNCTAD Report urges
• Perennial versus Annual — Prospects for Developing Perennial Grain Crops

Dive further:

• The Silent Time Bomb on Your Plate — When Will Your Moment of Truth Arrive?
• La Loma Via’s Life in Syntropy (VIDEO)
• From Garden to Forest (VIDEO)
• Agenda Gotsch (Ernst Gotsch) (VIDEO)
• HuffPost — How Ecological Intensification Can Feed the World
• Resilience — The Oil We Eat: Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq
• Stephen R. Gleissman & Miguel A Altieri — Polyculture cropping has advantages
• Cornell — Designing Polycultures for the Garden

Building Soil: Crop Rotation

Read these first:

• Union of Concerned Scientists — Healthy Farm Practices: Crop Rotation and Diversity
• European Commission — Increasing diversity through crop rotation boosts soil microbial biodiversity and productivity

Dive further:

• ScienceDirect — The impact of crop rotation on soil microbial diversity: A meta-analysis
• PubMed — Crop rotational diversity enhances belowground communities and functions in an agroecosystem
• Michigan State University — Crop Rotation Study Shows Positive Impact on Long-Term Land Sustainability
• Crop Species Diversity Changes in the United States: 1978-2012

Building Soil: Holistic Management and Rotational Grazing

Read these first:

• How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change | Allan Savory (VIDEO)
• Richard Teague — Adaptive Multi-Paddock Grazing (ARTICLE), and here’s the peer-reviewed article for a deeper look.

Dive further:

• Allan Savory — Holistic Management, Third Edition: A Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment (BOOK)
• BBC — Stampeding buffalo are returning to Canada (VIDEO)
• Native American Natural Foods — Buffalo Returns (VIDEO)
• Peter Byck Short Films (VIDEOS):
  • A Fence and an Owner
  • During the Drought
  • The Luckiest Places on Earth
  • One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts
  • Soil Carbon Curious
  • Soil Carbon Cowboys
  • Carbon Nation: The Movie (Trailer)

General Practices for Increasing Biodiversity

Read these first:

• FAO — Practices that influence the amount of organic matter
• Sustainable Ag Educations & Research — Building Soil Fertility and Tilth With Cover Crops

Dive further:

• Cornell — Soil Organic Matter Fact Sheet
• Increasing water infiltration, Keyline Design on Slopes — (VIDEO Demonstration)
• No-Till — Dr. Elaine Ingham — Soil Food Web (VIDEO)
• Professor Kate Scow (UC Davis) — Assessing the economic and social value of soil biodiversity (VIDEO)
• Does agricultural crop diversity enhance soil microbial biomass and organic matter dynamics? A meta-analysis
• CalCAN — Farming for Success in the 21st Century: Increasing Biodiversity
• Strategies for increasing biodiversity, thus improving terroir quality
• Biodiversity Change and Human Health: From Ecosystem Services to Spread of Disease (BOOK)
• Closing the knowledge gap: How the USDA could tap the potential of biologically diversified farming systems
• Investing in the transition to sustainable agriculture

Beyond Organic: Agroecology/Agroforestry

Read these first:

• Food First — Agroecology: A Path to Realizing the Right to Food
• Miguel Altieri: Why is agroecology the solution to hunger and food security? (VIDEO)

Dive further:

• Agroecology and the design of climate change-resilient farming systems (duplicate)
• Who will Feed us in a planet in crisis?
• Food First — World Hunger: Ten Myths
• Guardian — Permaculture in Malawi: using food forests to prevent floods and hunger
• From Garden to Forest (VIDEO)
• Permaculture — from forest to farm | Clea Chandmal (VIDEO)
• Kiss the Ground — Mark Shepard, regenerative farmer (VIDEO)
• USDA National Agroforestry Center

Beyond Organic: Permaculture

Read these first:

• Living With The Land | Part 3 | Farming with Nature (VIDEO)
• Planning for Permanence with Yeomans’ Keyline Scale

Dive further:

• Design Philosophy/methodology
  • Living With The Land | Part 6 | Animal-free Farming
• Keyline Design
  • Planning for Permanence with Yeomans’ Keyline Scale
  • Soil, Water & Carbon for Every Farm Building Soils, Harvesting Rainwater, Storing Carbon
  • The Keyline Plan
  • The Challenge of Landscape: The Development and Practice of Keyline Applicable to Ecological, Social, and Economic Systems
  • Keyline Designs Website
  • WikiMapia (Interactive Tool)
  • The City Forest: The Keyline Plan for the Human Environment Revolution
  • Keyline and Fertile Futures
  • Geographical and Topographical Basis of Keyline

Soil and Climate-Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Reversal

Read these first:

• Keith Paustian: Technical Potential of Soil Carbon Sequestration — https://www.breakthroughstrategiesandsolutions.com/resources
• Project Drawdown — Solutions

Dive further:

• Michael Pollan at 2014 New York Times Food for Tomorrow Conference — Keynote: The Great Challenge: Farming, Food and Climate Change (VIDEO)
• Regeneration International — Live interview @ the United Nations FAO HQ for the Global Symposium on Soil Organic Carbon, Carbon Loss VS Carbon Sequestration with Rattan Lal and Tom Crowther (VIDEO)
• Duplicate on YouTube (VIDEO)
• Yale — Soil as Carbon Storehouse: New Weapon in Climate Fight?
• Permaculture Magazine — Regenerative Organic Agriculture Can Reverse Climate Change
• Ethan Roland — Carbon Farming (VIDEO)
• Kiss The Ground — The Soil Story (VIDEO)
• Stemple Creek Farm & Strauss Dairy Farm — Cows, Compost, and Carbon (VIDEO)
• FoodTank — How Homeowners Can Help Restore Carbon
• Lal — Soil Carbon Sequestration Impacts on Global Climate Change and Food Security (duplicate)
• SF Chronicle — A sprinkle of compost helps rangeland lock up carbon
• Regeneration International — The Carbon Underground: Reversing Global Warming
• The Carbon Ranch: Fighting Climate Change One Acre at a Time
• HuffPost — Nature Wants Her Carbon Back
• National Geographic — How Africans Are Saving Their Own Soil
• Science Nordic — Charcoal makes African soil more fertile and productive
• Project Drawdown — Solutions
• Summary By Rank: Plausible Scenarios vs Optimum Scenarios
• Ag-related Solutions:
  • #3 Reduced Food Waste
  • #4 Plant-Rich Diet
  • #5 Tropical Forests
  • #6 Educating Girls
  • #9 Silvopature
  • #11 Regenerative Agriculture
  • #12 Temperate Forests
  • #13 Peatlands
  • #14 Tropical Staple Trees
  • #15 Afforestation
  • #16 Conservation Agriculture
  • #17 Tree Intercropping
  • #19 Managed Grazing
  • #23 Farmland Restoration
  • #24 Improved Rice Cultivation
  • #28 Multi-Strata Agroforestry
  • #30 Methane Digesters (Large)
  • #31 Insulation
  • #34 Biomass
  • #35 Bamboo
  • #38 Forest Protection
  • #39 Indigenous Peoples’ Land Management
  • #47 Bioplastics
  • #48 In-Stream Hydro
  • #51 Perennial Biomass
  • #52 Coastal Wetland
  • #53 System of Rice Intensification
  • #60 Composting
  • #62 Women Smallholders
  • #64 Methane Digesters (Small)
  • #65 Nutrient Management
  • #67 Farmland Irrigation
  • #71 Water Distribution
  • #72 Biochar
  • #73 Green Roofs
  • Coming Attractions: Building with Wood
  • Coming Attractions: A Cow Walks Onto a Beach
  • Coming Attractions: Industrial Hemp
  • Coming Attractions: Intensive Silvopasture
  • Coming Attractions: Living Buildings
  • Coming Attractions: Marine Permaculture
  • Coming Attractions: Microbial Farming
  • Coming Attractions: Ocean Farming
  • Coming Attractions: Pasture Cropping
  • Coming Attractions: Repopulating the Mammoth Steppe

Co-Benefits of Increasing Soil Health

Read these first:

• Rodale (1994): Why Soil Health Matters
• Soil Quality

Dive further:

• Soil Health
  • Mycorrhizal Fungi
• Soil Health Benefits for Sustaining Crop Production
• NRCS Soil Health (VIDEO)
  • Unlock the Secrets in the Soil: Basics & Benefits
  • NRCS’s Soil Health Initiative and its Relationship to Water Quality (VIDEO)
• The Science of Soil Health: Going Deeper
• Benefits of a Healthy Soil
• Increase Water holding capacity
  • What is it?
    • Soil Composition and Water Holding Capacity (VIDEO)
    • Soil Moisture Tutorial (VIDEO)
    • NRDC: Organic Matter Can Improve Your Soil’s Water Holding Capacity
    • Water Availability
    • Water Holding Capacity: Sponge Model
    • MSU: Why is soil water holding capacity important?
    • Infiltration
  • How does soil health increase Water Holding Capacity (and vice versa)?
    • MSU: Compost increases the water holding capacity of droughty soils
    • FAO: Creating drought-resistant soil
    • ATTRA: Soil Health & Drought Soil
    • NRCS: The Effects of Soil Health Management on Soil and Water Relations
• Increase Drought Tolerance/Resistance of Soil
  • Developing a Water-Conserving and Drought Resistant Soil
  • ATTRA: Drought Resistant Soil
  • FAO: Drought-resistant soils: Optimization of soil moisture for sustainable plant production (BOOK)
• Increase Yield
  • Using compost to improve soil health and crop productivity
• Reduce/eliminate use of toxic agrochemicals
  • Managing the Soil to Reduce Insect Pests
  • IPM
• Decreased erosion
  • Practices Improving Soil Health Also Reduce Erosion
• Increased soil structure
  • Soil Physical Fertility
  • Soil Health Series — Soil Structure
  • Soil Structure and Macropores
  • Soil Aggregation: the Basis of Soil Health
• Increase in Diversity and biomass of soil organisms (flora/fauna)
  • Food Web & Soil Health
  • Soil Organisms
  • Healthy Soil Microbes, Healthy People
• Increase in niche habitats
  • Healthy Soils, Healthy Wildlife

Soil Health Monitoring Metrics, Mechanisms, Techniques and Laymen Accessible Practices

Read these first:

• Soil Assessment Methods
• National Academies Press — Monitoring and Managing Soil Quality

Dive further:

• Soil Health Glossary
• UC Santa Cruz — Managing Soil Health
• Cornell — Soil Health Management
• Cornell — Soil Health Assessment
• An Integrated Soil Health Framework for California
• Soil health in agricultural systems
• FAO — Soil Health
• FAO — Assessment and monitoring biodiversity
• Microorganisms as indicators of soil health
• Soil Quality Monitoring Programs: A Literature Review — Appendix
• Tools and systems for assessing soil health
• Review of soil health activities and evaluation methods in the Goulburn Broken Catchment
• Establishing Farmers’ Understanding of Soil Health for the Future Development of ‘User-Friendly’ Soil Monitoring Packages