Farmers and growers across the UK can now explore a curated collection of practical resources to support better soil health, with the launch of Agricology’s new Soil Health Hub. The resouces include a number produced by ORC and/or outputs from projects that ORC has been involved with such as GREATSoils, OK-NET Arable and Early indicators to monitor changes in soil health.
Soil health is fundamental to productive, resilient farming systems. Healthy and biologically active soils support crop and livestock production, nutrient provision, water regulation and carbon storage, while providing habitat for a diverse community of microorganisms.
Although most farmers know that soil health is important, understanding the condition of soils and how to improve them isn’t always easy. With so much information available, it can be hard to know where to start and which resources to trust.
The new Agricology Soil Health Hub has been designed to solve this problem, acting as a knowledge library that brings together a wide range of learning materials from the Agricology archive and beyond. These include videos, blogs, research papers, design tools and farmer case studies, providing opportunities to explore different approaches and find practical guidance relevant to individual farms.
The hub, curated by Henny Lowth, Janie Caldbeck and Alice Farmery (all former ORC staff), begins with resources that outline the fundamentals of soil health and the biological, physical and chemical components that contribute to healthy soils. It then explores how to establish a baseline through soil assessment and sampling, before looking at a range of practices that can help address common soil health challenges.
Alongside practical guidance, the hub features examples of farmers working to improve soil health in their own fields, offering an opportunity to learn from real-world experiences and see how different approaches can be applied in practice.
By bringing these resources together in one place, Agricology’s new hub aims to make it easier for farmers and growers to navigate the wealth of information available on soil health and identify approaches that could work for their own farming systems.
Access the Hub here: https://agricology.co.uk/resource/soil-health-hub/
Agricology is an independent knowledge platform that supports farmers and growers in transitioning to more sustainable and resilient farming systems. It is free and open to all, bringing together farmer experience, research and practical resources on agroecological and regenerative practices, including soil health, crop diversity, rotations, cover cropping and agroforestry. Agricology was founded in 2015 and is managed and delivered by the Progressive Farming Trust in collaboration with over 40 partner organisations
