Minnesota Soil Health Story: Rhyan Schicker

**Rhyan Schicker planting trees for field windbreaks to decrease wind erosion while providing habitat.**

When I first moved to Minnesota eight years ago, my knowledge of soils and agricultural systems was purely textbook. I live and work in an amazing community that has taught me more than I ever expected to learn, and has pulled back the curtain on our current farming systems and the ways in which they work. I can say from personal experience that until you work within these systems, you really don’t understand the rules and limitations and it’s very easy to make assumptions on “what farmers should do.” I think something we can all agree on is that soil health makes up the building blocks of our food systems.

**Rhyan using custom equipment to plant long shelterbelt tree lines to prevent soil erosion.**

Our soil provides us so much more than we give it credit for. I wish there was a way we could go back in time, before corporate and commercial agriculture, to when we listened to what the land was telling us and responded accordingly, rather than in the quickest, most extractive ways. Nature gets it right, and my hope is that we can refocus to mimic her to the fullest extent possible. Both professionally and personally, I want to continue having conversations and sharing perspectives with farmers, landowners and managers, so that it’s not one or the other, farming versus conservation. Soil health isn’t just good for the environment — it’s an increase in our return on investment, it’s resiliency, and it’s a step towards cutting out unnecessary inputs to gain independence from corporations telling us what we need on the land they’ll never have a relationship with.

**Exploring the roots of Kernza, a perennial crop, via a soil pit.**

I feel honored to work in a soil health-focused field, in a state with some of the world’s best soils. I feel even more lucky to have my own small piece of land to raise healthy food on, while practicing what I preach: prioritizing soil healthy practices that also provide habitat for pollinators and wildlife. We need our state to support farmers’ ability to farm in a way that is both sustainable and economically secure, as we all benefit from clean water, healthy soil, and having small family-run farms on our landscape.

Rhyan Schicker is the district manager of the Lac qui Parle Soil and Water Conservation District in western Minnesota.

**Evaluating pollinator planting on unproductive ag land and finding sphinx moth caterpillars on butterfly milkweed.**

Support Minnesota Soil Health Legislation Today

Building healthy soil across Minnesota is key to creating resiliency in the face of a changing climate and is also incredibly important in supporting clean water. We all want clean drinking water for our families and communities.

Right now, bills are being heard in the Minnesota Legislature that could affect drinking water throughout the state and help farmers adopt practices that build soil health. Please sign the Land Stewardship Project’s petition to show your support for farmers, for soil health, and for clean water in Minnesota!

Two bills are being considered in the House regarding soil health (and two versions of the same bills in the Senate). One is to allocate grants for soil health-related equipment to individual farmers and Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs). The other supports a Southeast Regional Groundwater Protection and Soil Health Initiative in Minnesota. In this second bill, funding would go to SWCDs in the southeastern part of the state and would be spent on expanding the impact of the Olmsted County Groundwater Protection and Soil Health Program, which has become a model for encouraging farmers to adopt practices that produce results when it comes to improving soil health and protecting water quality.