Soil gets a bad rap. To most people, it’s just dirt — something they step on and try to keep out of the house.
Even for farmers and ranchers, whose livelihoods depend on the land, taking care of the soil’s microscopic ecosystem of fungi, bacteria and insects has often become a bit of an afterthought.
Stanford Jensen has seen this up close at his family’s farm and ranch near Salina in central Utah. Like many, he said, his family was sold the idea that chemicals were the key to successful farming.
“I never thought about, ‘What am I doing to the earthworms when I till, when I spread chemical fertilizers, when I spray pesticides? What am I doing to the funguses and the bacteria?’ Because in the agrochemical world, they're pushing all those things.”
A few years ago, Jensen started changing how he manages their property, Sunnyside Up Pastures, to slowly reverse the damage from conventional farming practices. He stopped using fertilizer and tilling up his fields and now keeps the ground sheltered year-round with cover crops — plants intended to improve the soil rather than get harvested.
Farmers like Jensen are still in the minority, but a recent conference held in St. George by the Utah Soil Health Partnership highlights the growing movement within agriculture to take better care of the soil. Doing so can conserve water and save money by reducing what farmers and ranchers spend on chemicals, machinery and irrigation.
The big idea is to mimic nature, Jensen said. Moving his cattle herd around from one part of the pasture to the next, for example, reflects how bison historically trampled their way across the American plains.
“Why do I need to spread fertilizer? They did it. There was no fuel involved. There was no chemical fertilizer.”
And to top it off, he said the food they produce is more nutritious and tastes better than before.
Finding ways for agriculture to use less water is crucial in a dry state like Utah. That’s why Mexican rancher Alejandro Carrillo came to the conference to share the lessons he’s learned in the Chihuahuan Desert.
Right now, he said this soil health philosophy is more common in his part of Mexico than it is in Utah. And if more agricultural producers don’t start taking this issue seriously, it could spell big trouble down the road.
“It will affect everybody, not only ranchers. You’ll have more flooding. You’ll have more droughts,” Carrillo said. “The sooner we do it, the less suffering there will be.”
When he started implementing these principles 15 years ago, much of his dirt was compacted and bare. Since then he’s seen the return of healthy grasslands and an abundance of wildlife as his pastures become better habitats.
Carrillo has also had a nine-fold increase in how much water his soil can absorb per hour — meaning more sticks around rather than running downstream. The key, he said, is increasing the amount of living, organic matter underground so the soil has more air pockets to hold water.
Ryan Christensen has seen similar results on his family’s farm in southeast Idaho. By improving the health of his soil, the amount of irrigation his grain crops need has gone from 18 inches a year to just 10.
“You pencil that out and that is millions and millions of gallons of water,” he said. “Water is critical for crops, but water is most critical for humans. And if farmers can save that water, then that allows urbanization to happen and it allows communities to flourish.”
He’s also used thermal imaging to show that his fields with cover crops stay 10-20 degrees cooler than those that are left as bare dirt between plantings, known as fallow. Cooler temps mean there’s less evaporation, which has helped double the amount of moisture staying in his soil.
Even though his family’s crop yields are lower than a few years ago, he said their profits are still better now because they’re saving money on water and fertilizer.
So if the benefits of healthy soil are so great, why aren’t more farmers and ranchers already doing this?
Not only does changing practices require money for new equipment, Christensen said, but it also takes a big mindset shift.
“I have a ton of skeptical neighbors. I get stopped and told I’m crazy all the time. But I show them the data.”
McKinley Smoot, a rancher in Summit County’s Kamas Valley, has heard that same type of hesitancy in his role as chair of the state’s soil health advisory committee. The margin of error for farming in a dry place like Utah is very thin, he said, so he understands why some people see changing practices as too big of a risk.
“If you try this other way, you might fail. And if you fail, you're done. You're out,” he said. “If you're a fifth-generation rancher, you don't want to be the generation left holding the bag of, like, ‘I was the one who lost it.’”
But as more agricultural producers get on board and events like this conference bring them together to share best practices, he said, that’s slowly starting to change.
Smoot believes two things have also helped speed up this shift. The extreme drought of 2021-2022 forced farmers and ranchers to scramble for anything that might help them get through –- and there’s a demographic shift happening as older generations retire and younger folks are more open to doing things differently.
State support has also lent a hand, he said.
The soil health program created by the Utah Legislature in 2021 offers grants to help more producers buy the equipment they need to change practices. Utah has also started a network of test plots across the state that are showing how some of these techniques work in various climates and altitudes.
There’s still a long way to go to get more Utah farmers and ranchers on board, however, so more state funding could help promote this transition.
“If we really care about water, we really care about the Great Salt Lake and the Colorado River, you figure out how to be better stewards of water and land,” Smoot said. “And the legislators need to know that.”
