Category Archives: Stories
Nebraska Soil Health Coalition
Soil Health Success Stories: This week I’m sharing on the Nebraska Soil Health Coalition. I’ve watched this effort since 2019 and am grateful for the leadership, vision, dedication, and endurance of the Board individuals who have successfully completed the beginning efforts of this Coalition! Some background from their website at: https://www.nesoilhealth.org/, “In recognition of the need to achieve more rapid and widespread adoption of soil health practices with multiple benefits, the Nebraska Legislature passed LB 243 in 2019. The legislation created a 17-member Healthy Soils Task Force (HSTF) task with developing a Nebraska Healthy Soils Initiative. The Healthy Soils Task Force concluded that healthier soils produced through best soil management practices improve yield stability, produce greater financial returns over time, reduce the need for chemical inputs, increase water infiltration rates and water storage capacity making soil more resilient to drought, flooding, and erosion, and protect and improve water quality.”
“In May of 2023 a group of committed individuals decided to establish an independent, non-profit Soil Health Coalition in Nebraska. The purpose of the Coalition is to advance producer-centered education, outreach, and adoption of soil health principles to build resilient farms, ranches, and communities across Nebraska.”
What I appreciate is the three-pronged, four metric approach that is different than what has been built in other states. The three prongs include: producer learning communities, demonstration/education sites, stakeholder visioning groups. The fourth metric includes Outcomes (soil health benchmarks, improved economics, community growth, success stories).
The other difference is the building of “Hubs” that include producers and stakeholders (medical, financial, consulting, community, etc.) in the surrounding communities of around a 9-county area. Hub 1 began in the Hastings and surrounding area with Hub 2 rolling out now in Southwest NE.
The producers participated in economic interviews with the Soil Health Institute (SHI) and socio-behavior interviews with Dr. Julie Snorek. Why is this important? SHI seeks to quantify economics of conventional vs. regenerative ag practices. By interviewing producers in a similar region, the economics and practices of that region can better be quantified and relevant to those producers.
What was learned? 20 farmers who had adopted soil health management strategies for at least 5 years (cover crops, reduced tillage, Sentinel Ag, etc.) were interviewed. For irrigated corn/soybean, it was found that overall, producers were able to reduce expenses by adopting soil health practices by a total of $147.19/ac for corn and $88.27 for soybeans. Added value from revenue such as grazing provided a total value of soil health practices of $152.94/ac for corn and $89.73/ac for soybean. Non-irrigated corn soybean saw a total value of $197.80 for corn and $102.12 for soybean for adopting soil health management practices. The full fact-sheet can be found here and is worth a read!
On the socio-behavioral side, the producers shared about isolation in adopting practices different than their neighbors, the importance of producer learning communities/peer networks to be vulnerable in sharing successes and failures, independence they felt in reducing the need to pay entities for inputs, farming being more fun/interesting in trying different practices, and also the need for alternative markets. The joy for me in attending the Celebration Event last week was seeing a glimmer of the hard work and dedication of the Board realized with producers and stakeholders presenting outcomes and the ability to have economics around these topics that are meaningful to Nebraska producers. Our hope is that more producers who are watching on the fringes will join us in adopting soil health practices in the future! More info. at: https://www.nesoilhealth.org/.
Water use till maturity for Corn: Beginning Dent 5”, ¼ milk 3.75”; ½ milk 2.25”; ¾ milk 1”.
Water use till maturity for Beans: Beg. Seed 6.5”; Full Seed 3.5”; Leaves beg yellow 1.9”.
Register now to reserve your seat: https://cvent.me/WMzLdk.
Life is Not Guaranteed
Last Tuesday night was our first Farm Succession Program “Leaving a Lasting Legacy”. That night was an incredibly impactful night for me. We heard from two women who became widows in their 30’s with young children. They were incredibly courageous in sharing their stories of loss, grief, difficulty navigating bills and decisions, etc. I left that night with so much on my mind. My husband and I have talked much since then. I’ve also shared with my siblings as we talked through how would our next of kin be able to navigate our accounts, passwords, etc. if something would happen to us.
The ladies shared several things that I felt would be beneficial to all for me to share here.
- At minimum, have a will in place that shares your desires for who receives your belongings, guardians for your children, etc.
- All vehicles and property should be listed as “joint tenancy with right of survivorship”.
- Both widows nearly dealt with probate. One widow lost both her father and husband in a plane crash and both were part of the family dairy business. The trust had been started but never completed by the father. They were able to avoid probate on the things the father had in the part of the estate plan written down but are still paying hefty fees on the parts that weren’t written in order to keep the family business. She emphasized the importance of finishing estate plans!!! Then review them every 2-3 years.
- In the case of the other widow, the husband had an off-farm job as a life insurance agent in addition to the farm. She shared the blessing of how well he provided for her by having such a large life insurance policy that helped her pay off debt and keep/manage the farm while raising her children at home.
- All accounts need to have both people listed. For example, the family phone plan was listed under the husband. She wasn’t able to access it with the phone company since she wasn’t listed and had to start over with new phones and accounts.
- The husband’s work email was used for several accounts at home (electric, heat, etc.). When he passed, his email was discontinued and the wife had no access to the accounts, nor was she listed on them. They both shared the difficulty paying bills and keeping their homes because they weren’t listed on accounts, on top of the immense grief they experienced.
- Ensure all account usernames and passwords are in a place where your next of kin can access them. There are tools for this including Nokboxes from Dave Ramsey.
- Medical: Many lawyers have templates for this, but if not, one document tool (paper or digital) you can use is from 5 Wishes. One wife whose husband was non-responsive had no idea if he would want experimental drugs used, if he wanted to be on dialysis for the rest of his life, and then if he wanted to remain on life support. She shared how having to make those decisions for him still haunts her, especially discontinuing life support.
There’s so much more I could share. Life is so short. Tomorrow, our next moments, nothing is guaranteed. My hope is that this column creates conversations amongst loved ones. Do you and your spouse/next of kin have a will in place? Do you have access to each others’ bank accounts, have a place where usernames/passwords are stored, have the names necessary on all accounts?
If you’re interested in attending, we will still take people each Tuesday night for the next three weeks. Please contact the Extension Office closest to you if you’re interested. More info: https://wia.unl.edu/succession25/.
JenResources 