You know that switching to organic and pasture-based agriculture is what we need to do to feed the world and cool the planet—because healthy soil can both provide abundant food, and also draw down and sequester carbon.

But do our federal policymakers know this? And if so, are they doing anything about it?

As it turns out, at least some of them have heard the message. Our job is to push them to act. Here are two ways you can help:

Action #1: Deadline Jan. 10: Support the 'Federal Strategic Plan for Soil Science' 

Action #2: Invite Your Congresspersons to the 'Soil Is the Solution' Briefing 

The National Science and Technology Council’s Soil Science Interagency Working Group just released “The State and Future of U.S. Soils: A Framework for a Federal Strategic Plan for Soil Science.” This breakthrough document that officially recognizes that:

Soil is essential to human life. Not only is it vital for providing most of the world’s food, it plays a critical role in ensuring water quality and availability; supports a vast array of non-food products and benefits, including mitigation of climate change; and affects biodiversity important for ecological resilience. These roles make soil essential to modern life.

Thus, it is imperative that everyone—city dwellers, farmers and ranchers, land owners, and rural citizens alike—take responsibility for caring for and investing in our soils.

TAKE ACTION by Jan. 10: State your support for the 'Federal Strategic Plan for Soil Science'

In addition to organizing public comments in support of the “Federal Strategic Plan for Soil Science,” we’re also organizing a briefing on Capitol Hill to educate Senators and Members of Congress about regenerative agriculture’s capacity to address some of our most pressing problems:

1) Skyrocketing rates of diet-related diseases, 
2) Rapidly vanishing natural resources, especially water, and 
3) Dangerous concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

These problems have one thing in common: They can't be solved without soil. We might take dirt for granted, but we can't do much without it. As an anonymous wit observed:

Humankind, despite its artistic abilities, sophistication and accomplishments, owes its existence to a six-inch layer of farmable soil—and the fact that it rains!

TAKE ACTION: Click here to invite your Senators and Members of Congress to attend our January 11 briefing on how caring for the soil can help feed the world and cool the planet.

If you’re in the D.C. area, you’re welcome to attend, as well.

And here’s a third way you can support regenerative agriculture this month. Join us at the Regenerative Agriculture Track at the Future Harvest-Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture Conference on January 13, in Hyattsville, Md. Click here to register.

Let’s start the new year right—by working on a plan to transition to a 100-percent regenerative food and farming system.