Soil Health is the Foundation of Health for the Entire Human Race
Soil health is really the foundation of health for the entire human race.
A few surprising stats about the importance of our soil:
• 70% of the global population is fed by millions of small farmers
• The soil carbon pool is approximately 3.1 times larger than atmospheric pool
• Regenerating 40% of farm / ranch land in the world can stabilize our CO2
On the Impact Stories Podcast, I spoke with Harriette Brainard with Soil in Formation, PBC. They are pioneering a new technology that allows farmers to see what’s going on in the soil in real time – no technician required to take core soil samples, no waiting for a month for the results. This gives farmers the data they need to regenerate the health of their soil.
Regenerative soil not only helps increase yields and food security, but it also retains water better to be more drought resistant.
They are currently developing their commercial probes which will be extremely affordable for farmers.
They are fully funded. Currently they are looking for partners in Africa, Europe, US, and South America to do pilots of their technology.
Podcast Transcript
Jacob: [00:00:00] Welcome to Impact Stories. I’m here with Harriet, with SIF, please introduce yourself.
Harriette: Nice to see you, Jacob. I work with Soil In Formation, which is also called SIF, and my name is Harry Brainard and I have been working with SIF since 2022.
Jacob: What is SIF all about? What is the good that you’re trying to do in the world?
Harriette: I should start with how I met the founders because I think that says a lot about -, where our hearts are. I’m a certified sustainability counselor. So I was working with different initiatives and I happened to be on a regenerate Bahamas call and I met Henry Rowlands.
We realized we were very mission-aligned and passions were completely aligned and he said could you have another call with some fellow founders of the work I’m doing presently. And I said, sure, we had a conversation and one of the things that they asked me is would you be interested in joining us? And I said to them well, it sounds to me like you’re really trying to save the world’s soil and if that’s what you’re doing, I absolutely would love to join you. So that’s how it started.
Soil in Formation [00:01:00] was started because Henry Rowlands has been focusing on soil measurement and soil metrics for decades. Much like the human body, which works very much together to keep you healthy, soil works together. All the different metrics of soil go to make the soil very healthy and carbon is one of those. Your carbon levels fluctuate. So when you’re going out to measure carbon and soil, they take a point in time and they measure. However, the problem is, of course, the carbon is going up and down.
And so at that point, Henry was like, we really need to solve for this. If we solve for getting in real time measurements of carbon we’ll be able to bring the resources to the farmers that are necessary to enhance global soil health. Henry started going down a deep dive into all the different MRVs and we call it MRV, measurement verification systems that measure healthy soil and carbon in soil. So he went forward to look through all these different [00:02:00] methodologies. The gold standard right now is going out and actually taking a core out of the soil and taking it to a soil lab, and they get the results in time. You know, not immediately, about their soil, and then they can make judgments.
The problem with all this is that there’s such a lag in time, and there’s such a scale that we need right now. We have farmers across the world who need these metrics right now to drive resources and we must have accurate data. So Henry looked into all these methodologies, but there was nothing that could scale at great length because there’s no methodology that does not require a technician to measure those health metrics. Everybody needs a technician to go out and do that soil measurement.
Harriette: So Henry was aware of this electrochemical technology, but he knew that it wasn’t going to be able to scale because you needed large amounts of moisture in the soil in order to get accurate readings. What happened was he happened to hear Dr. Shalini Prasad, who works at the University of Texas, Dallas, speak on a [00:03:00] breakthrough technology she had made for the human body. She was able to get accurate measurements of your cortisol, your glucose, and different health metrics for the human body through just trace amounts of moisture.
So Henry approached her about applying this technology to the soil, and that’s really what sips all about. We’ve applied this electric chemical technology to the soil. So with very low amounts of moisture, we are able to get in real-time, accurate measurements, and we can scale this because we don’t need a technician, we’re in the process of building commercial probes right now.
Jacob: So this is kind of groundbreaking technology that doesn’t really exist anywhere.
Harriette: Right, and not to say that there will be more different technologies that will expand, but in order to support the scale that we need right now, this is the technology that we must use.
Jacob: What are the limitations of other technologies that are existent already?
Harriette: The limitations are primarily around the use of a technician. First [00:04:00] of all, let’s start with the gold standard, which is going out and taking an in-ground soil measurement. It’s still a process. I was talking to a farmer in Vermont and they’d go and take it to a lab, but the earliest they see a result is a month later. Now, who knows what’s been going on in that soil?
So the difference between most technologies is modeling, most technologies have to model what’s going on in the soil because they can’t get an accurate reading. They model out what’s likely going on in the soil. We actually can see what’s going on in the soil in real-time with our technology. You can see it moving. So that’s a major difference.
Harriette: We have modeled out with core data historical levels of carbon and, I’m not only talking about organic carbon, but inorganic carbon. We actually give you a total carbon measurement. We have modeled that out historically over time and so our platform can give a farmer what’s historical in that soil.
The farmer [00:05:00] can either take a course or a sample or use our data to model out what’s attainable in their soil. And this is just going to be revolutionary for farmers to be able to see what type of work they’re doing on the land and what enhances their soil health.
Jacob: So knowing that how does that change things? If a farmer can look at real-time, what are they able to do now? What’s the potential benefit down the road of having this technology implemented?
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Harriette: Great question, for many reasons. One is driving resources the farmer will be able to use that data to drive monetary resources and support systems to support their practices. It’s going to also give them enough information to move towards regeneration. Whatever that means, the data will show them. what will regenerate that soil?
When we talk about regeneration and regenerative practices, what that means is you’re regenerating the health of that soil. You’re driving the topsoil back in. You’re driving the [00:06:00] depth of that soil. You’re driving the total health and microorganisms of that soil. A healthy soil does many things besides food security and yield increase and so forth. It also will retain water better, it acts like a sponge.
If you look back historically over time in the world, there have been droughts and floods historically for decades and decades. How does that soil manage that? Well, the soil was healthy years and years ago, very healthy, and able to manage those differences in climate. Now the soil cannot handle that because they’ve lost their ability to retain and absorb water.
But if we regenerate the soil, it will be able to do that. And the impact is critical to the health of both the farmer and the community, both regionally and nationally as well.
Jacob: If you were to sum up in like a nutshell, why does soil health matter? What are the three most important reasons why soil health matters to an average person that maybe doesn’t have the depth of experience that you have?
Harriette: One word I would [00:07:00] use is health. Healthy soil is the ground that you have to stabilize in order for health to thrive in all areas of our lives.
We know now that growing products in chemically induced soils is compromising our health. Our body is not able to synthesize the chemicals that are in the processed foods we’re eating. And as close to the ground as we can eat, we should be, but we’d still want that soil to be healthy because that’s where all the nutrition is coming from. Soil really is the foundation in my mind for the health of everything you do as a human being.
Now, I would also add it’s the security as well. If we can regenerate 40% of the farmland and ranch land that’s being cultivated right now in the world, we can stabilize our CO2. So that’s another major reason to focus on soil.
I would also say the third is, our own community security. We forget that [00:08:00] people want to stay where they are. I think we forget that you have a sense of the place where you grew up. I can remember so many things about my youth and growing up. where I did. Everybody feels that you know, everybody feels a sense of belonging. That’s why people want to go back and visit their homes and see their homeland.
I think we forget that in these discussions and if people were able to stay where they are because the land is regenerated and the soil is rich and they can grow food security and it will stabilize the security of that land. I know that that will be a significant change in the global situation that we’re facing today.
Jacob: What got you on this journey personally?
Harriette: My kids will laugh because they’re always like, oh, you’re going to talk about that again you know. But, I did have an illness in high school that got me thinking about my own health, and. I learned about the relationship between what I eat and my own health.
I then read Food First and Diet [00:09:00] for a Small Planet and all these sorts of macro books about global health and food security. That had a tremendous impact on me because all of a sudden I realized it wasn’t just my own health. What I ate impacted what other people were doing in the world. So, I really took that to heart.
At some point, later on, I then met Alice Waters. She had a tremendous impact and I always wanted to have this farm-to-table restaurant. So I ended up launching a farm-to-table restaurant which was wonderful and it was sort of my dream in many ways. Fast forward, I had to leave the restaurant and I moved to Vermont and I was continuing to raise my children and then I met Bill McKibben. And Bill and I did an interview around eating locally.
He spent six months only eating with it within 50 miles of where we lived in Vermont. So we wrote a piece about that and Bill McKibben got me very involved in climate and so that brought that missing piece. So I realized really that that’s the work I wanted to be doing.
Jacob: And some of your family’s even picked up on some of that [00:10:00] interest, right?
Harriette: Yeah, I have four children, two daughters and two sons, I’m very lucky. One of my sons is a farmer and is deeply involved in soil, which is wonderful for me. He grows for the community and he also grows culinary mushrooms commercially. I also have a son who’s a UN climate champion who is focused on energy and renewables but is also very interested in nature-based solutions.
And then another daughter who is in equity and consulting and another daughter who’s in marketing. At some level, I interact with all of them around the work I do. So it’s fun.
Jacob: So for SIF right now, what, what is it that you are most looking for at this moment?
Harriette: We were looking for investment in 2023. We went to trials at the end of 2022 into 2023 and when our data started coming back, we realized just how accurate. , our work was just thought, oh my gosh, we really have something. Fast forward, we finally were able to receive funding and we were fully vested by the end of the [00:11:00] year, beginning of 2024 and so we’re not looking for investment at the moment.
We are building our commercial-level probe, which will be ready at the beginning of Q25, which is incredibly exciting. That probe at a commercial level, we’ll be able to not only be extremely affordable for farmers but won’t need a technician and they can just put it in the ground.
So what we’re looking for is partnerships and pilots, figuring out who will get the first probes to do this pilot work. We’re looking at partnerships in Africa, in Europe, in the United States and South America, and in Latin America. So all over
Jacob: What’s your vision of the future of where this could go and what the impact could be?
Harriette: I believe that with the availability of this data, I see the advancement of regenerative agricultural techniques. Whatever they may be, both in ranching and in forestry, in all areas of land ownership. I see it scaling really rapidly. We’re hoping that within a couple of months or [00:12:00] at least the, you know, half a year, whatever the, the price will debut between a hundred, $200 per pro, which is incredibly affordable. That just really excites me.
These are practices that farmers have been trying to implement and trying to do, but it’s hard. There are so many things working against them, not just the climate, but resources and the support systems. So if we can give the data in order to support all these other parts of their system that can then drive resources to them. It’s really exciting to me. It’s just going to advance all that work very quickly.
Jacob: And if somebody wanted to find SIF or contact you, what’s the best way for them to find out more about SIF?
Harriette: Email is relatively easy because it’s HBrainard@S-I-F.earth, but I’m on LinkedIn, those are both easy ways to contact me. Our website is in construction, it’s up but it’s in construction. So it’s hard to get as much information off that.
But you can easily go to the website, which is SIF Earth as well.
Jacob: [00:13:00] Any last things to share before I let you go?
Harriette: I think soil is something that we walk on and we eat from and it does all this incredible work every day, but it’s like everything else, you know, we take it for granted. So it’s fun to have a discussion around the sort of holistic picture of what soil really is because it’s just so much more. The other piece that’s exciting to me is what’s going on in the urban sectors, not just the rural, the integration between the two because even coming to where I just moved to in Maine. They are understanding the importance of the soil in the urban area. People are saying we shouldn’t be covering over that parking lot. We should put in a permeable surface so the soil can breathe.
These are the discussions that I didn’t hear about a year or two ago. And these are all happening in small towns everywhere, not just here in the United States, but in so many places, you know, you see people starting to understand the importance of supporting their [00:14:00] soil.
Here where I am now, they’re talking about how we can regenerate the soil. And then can we have a bunch of your probes? Well, eventually you can, how do we enhance the soil in the urban as well as the rural? So I think that’s another exciting conversation that’s going on too.
Jacob: Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and insights and excited to see this progress and keep up the good work.
Harriette: Thank you so much for having this conversation. Enjoyed it.
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