Soil health is the cornerstone of sustainable agriculture, and its impact extends far beyond the confines of the farm. As we enter the festive season, it's a fitting time to reflect on the invaluable gifts of soil health. These include policies, advocates, media influence, scientific expertise, and farmer dedication—all crucial in driving progress toward a healthier, more resilient agricultural ecosystem. Let’s celebrate these contributions and recognize their role in safeguarding our future.

Ramon Garcia is a farmer from near Marcos Juárez city, southeast Córdoba Province, Argentina, and a member of the Carbon Gap Network or Red de Brechas de Carbono (RBC) project from the Argentine No-Till Farmers Association (Aapresid).

Learn more about Ramon’s experience with the RBC project, and the approach as a whole in a new brief co-produced by CA4SH and Aapresid to highlight approaches to scale global soil health.

Upendra Bhusal is a student of Agriculture at the Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal. He is a member of the CA4SH #Youth4Soil initiative, IAAS, YPARD, FAYI, Leo Club, and more.

Learn about his unique approach to scaling soil health in his community, and his plans to scale this approach in 2024/2025.

Lankala Visweshwara Rao manages his 4-acre arabica coffee farm in Alluri Sitaramaraju district in Andhra Pradesh state in India. He has faced numerous challenges, including the dreaded white stem borer disease, a significant threat in the country’s coffee-growing regions, including Rao’s coffee farm.

Since 2023, Rao has used PxD’s Coffee Krishi Taranga service, a voice-based digital agricultural advisory service, which has provided him with insights and proactive measures to remove and dispose of infected plants in a way that will prevent the spread of larvae. Learn about the other features of the project!

Nakivale refugee settlement was established in 1958 and is the 8th largest refugee settlement in the world, located approximately 200 km away from Kampala, Uganda'. It is one of the oldest refugee settlements in Uganda and contains 79 individual villages.

Recently, food distribution has reduced, creating a food shortage worsened by persistent drought and soil exhaustion. Since 2023, the communities’ needs have outpaced available resources.

Mbilizi Kalombo is a young Congolese refugee living in Nakivale Refugee Settlement. He is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of KYETE BIINGI TAI NYEME - a refugee-led, community-based organization seeking to improve the lives of refugees, including by promoting sustainable soil management practices.

In 2018, a village in Chhattisgarh, India struggled to meet market demands for chillies due to low yields and a short growing period. The villagers turned to Cownomics® Technology from Vaidic Srijan, an approach rooted in traditional Indian Vedic sciences that balances the health of soil, water and air for greater overall cohesion on the farm. Farmers were taken aback by how quickly they saw their crops respond.

Story and photos from Madhukar Swayambhu, Founder & Research Head, Vaidic Srijan LLP, a member of CA4SH from Bharat (India)

In December, Nature and People as One (NaPO) held a workshop in Karare, an area bordering the Mt Marsabit National Reserve, that brought together 59 community voices representing 39 villages from Parkishon, Kamboe, Loglogo and Karare (important rangelands surrounding the Mt Marsabit Forest). The goal was to assess progress with implementing the Ramat model, celebrate its successes, and assess the challenges.

Story and photos by Adrian Leitoro, Co-Founder of NaPO

Meet Survivor Aid; a youth-led NGO based in South Sudan who are working to empower smallholder farmers to adopt sustainable farming methods that are good for people and the planet.

Gladys Foliyamu is a smallholder farmer in Malawi who has increased her household food security and income opportunities through home gardening. Gladys is supported by the NEVAM project from Agri-Impact Malawi who advocate for making the most of available land through sustainable farming practices.

Aisha Hassan and Lukas Paltanavičius are cycling across the world to learn hands-on about practices of regenerative agriculture. In this guest article on the Furrow, they uncover how regenerative agriculture helps to increase biodiversity.

“Srouy’s hands move deftly amongst the vines, her thumb and forefinger pinching each ripe bean from its stem. By the end of the month, she will have harvested some 60 kilograms of beans for sale to her local farmers’ cooperative. Today, after forty years of farming, Srouy is as much entrepreneur as farmer…”

Ermitaño González is a graduate of Sustainable Harvest International (SHI)’s transformative farmer training program in 2012. Learn about what the training entails and how it has affected Ermitaño and his family.