2020 Video Conference
The 2020 conference was a series of videos from local producers, researchers, and organizations highlighting projects focused on improving soil health.
Like many other gatherings in 2020, the Soil Revolution Conference was canceled. To keep the momentum going and continue to encourage improved soil health, the Soil Revolution Conference partnered with local soil health advocates to produce a series of short videos highlighting soil health projects and progressive producers in Boulder County and beyond. Videos highlight Boulder County farmers, programs and projects, statewide initiatives, and regional research projects.
All videos are posted below and on our YouTube channel.
Light Root Community Farm on Using Diversity and Balance to Promote Soil Health
Daphne Kingsley and Cameron Genter discuss their draft-powered 100-acre dairy, Light Root Community Farm, located in Boulder, Colorado. They believe soil health is foundational for whole-farm health, from plants to animals to the community they serve. They focus on soil health through their rotational grazing practices, on-farm composting, and using using low-impact draft horses for field operations.
Boulder County Sustainable Food and Agriculture Fund: SkyPilot Farm
Longmont's SkyPilot Farm expanded their mobile grazing operation and regenerative agriculture footprint with a grant from Boulder County's Sustainable Food and Agriculture Fund.
Mosca-Hooper Conservation District: Static Pile Fungal Rich Vermicompost Field Trials
Patrick O’Neil with Soil Health Services SCC, in cooperation with the Mosca-Hooper Conservation District, eighteen San Luis Valley farmers, and Soil Carbon Coalition, have organized to undertake the assembly of static compost piles to produce high-fungal compost for inoculation of agriculture fields. This video highlights the project and exciting findings over the 2020 season.
Black Cat Farms
Trestin Benson, a masters student from Montana State University, discusses her 3-year project looking at livestock grazing impacts on soil health properties on small-scale vegetable farms. This research was conducted on-farm, including at Black Cat Farm in Boulder, Colorado. To learn more about this project and all of the outcomes, visit attra.org.
Indigo Ag and Boulder County Parks & Open Space Partnership Project
Indigo Ag and Boulder County Parks & Open Space are partnering together to explore expanding regenerative practices on a larger scale on county open space.
Eco-Cycle's Community Carbon Farming Campaign
Dan Matsch of Eco-Cycle provides an update on their Community Carbon Farming Project. This campaign aims to increase awareness about the link between waste, compost use and climate change through an innovative citizen science project investigating the potential for urban soils to capture carbon along the Front Range. Hear Dan make the case for increasing community buy-in for urban carbon farming in order to drive incentives for healthy soils and carbon farming on agricultural landscapes.
STAR Program
Cindy Lair with the Colorado Department of Agriculture State Conservation Board discusses the new STAR (Saving Tomorrows Agricultural Resources) Program for the State of Colorado.
Growing Gardens
Welcome to Growing Gardens where community is cultivated through sustainable agriculture. Over the last 20 years, Growing Gardens has brought sustainable agriculture education and food donations to over 136,000 Boulder County residents. Learn how they incorporate soil health practices into their daily operations.
Mad Ag Fellowship Project
Many food companies and businesses want to support regenerative agriculture but are not sure how. Mad Ag's fellowship program focused on Regenerative supply webs to help the market sector of regenerative food systems.
McCauley Family Farm
Marcus McCauley of McCauley Family Farm in Longmont, Colorado discusses the mobile infrastructure purchased with assistance from Boulder County's Sustainable Food and Agriculture Fund Program to employ multispecies grazing to rehabilitate degraded land. Marcus purchased a solar unit, shade structure and water trailer to provide reliable shade and water, as well as protection from predation, for better animal performance, better land utilization, better farm profitability and better soils.
Farmers Advancing Regenerative Management Systems
The Farms: Farmers Advancing Regenerative Agriculture project will support producers in the CO high plains by providing incentive payments to create and implement comprehensive soil health management plans, facilitating farmer to farmer mentoring programs and conducting a thorough evaluation of soil health, nutrient density, economic factors and social outcomes to participating farms.
Welcome to Long's Gardens!
Long’s Gardens is a third generation, family owned and operated iris farm in the middle of Boulder. Learn about their land preservation efforts, implementation of soil health practices as well as community outreach and educational programs.
Citizen Science Soil Health Project Update
Elizabeth Black discusses her Citizen Science Soil Health Project, a ten-year long grower-driven effort to help local producers in the Boulder Valley become more invested in their soils by providing an annual Haney soil test and training on interpretation of soil tests. She developed a color-coded report to help growers understand their soil test results individually, as well as compared to their peers. Elizabeth is still analyzing data from 2020, but has summarized data from 2019.
Adapting Regenerative Ag Principles to Dryland Systems of the High Plains
CSU Associate Professor Meagan Schipanski highlights the findings from her on-farm research project adapting regenerative ag principles to dryland systems of the High Plains. This project was producer driven and systems based, focused in a highly variable and low rainfall environment, with producers committed to soil health while balancing the short and long term economics.
Bennett Property Carbon Farming Project
This video provides an update on the City of Boulder's Open Space and Mountain Parks carbon farming and restoration project on the Bennett property. Due to lack of forage production and eroded soils, this property has not been leased since 2017. 2020 marked the third year of intensive management intervention to try to stabilize the soils with vegetative cover. Results and lessons learned are summarized in the video.