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UNH Biology student Ella Caughran ’22, follows HB 199: an act including soil health and soil conservation in the state soil conservation plan.
University of New Hampshire students explore the science behind the underlying aspects of current issues under consideration at New Hampshire's State House.
Transcript by Otter.ai
From UNH Cooperative Extension, this is Relative to New Hampshire.
Step into the classroom and listen in while group of UNH students explore the underlying aspects of current issues under consideration at New Hampshire's State House. We pick apart those issues and connect with experts. All to share with you, insights from our scientific community that enhance our understanding of the biological world right here in New Hampshire, home of the greatest democracy in the world.
Anna: I’m your moderator, Dr. Anna Kate Wallingford.
Ella: I’m Ella. I’m a Junior Biology major at UNH.
Anna: Ella has been following HB 199 an act including soil health and soil conservation in the state soil conservation plan. While Ella followed this bill and attended public hearings, she reported back to the group in our weekly meeting about what she learned along the way. The group is a team of science liaisons made up of UNH students from a diverse array of departments in the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, as well as my co-moderators Extension’s Public Engagement Program Manager, Nate Bernitz and Extension’s Public Affairs Manager, Lauren Banker. Let’s start with Ella’s summary following the public hearing.
Ella: It seems like it's kind of just an amendment on the previous plan for soil conservation in the state, but added a lot of like focus on general soil health and also mitigation of the effects of climate change. Like, it didn't include anything about, you know, climate change before and now that is a focus, he kind of explained that the purpose of this bill is basically to put the language in place, in relation to soil conservation and kind of redefined soil health, because this hasn't been updated since like the 80s, partially the question we're asking it like honestly very different from the questions that I would have asked if I was asking questions.
It was a lot of stuff and just clarify why specific climate change, and stuff like that. Why are you saying this? Just clarifying, like, why do we need language specific to climate change? Why are we not using environmental change? Just like, kind of specific clarifications on the definitions that were used there.
Anna: I have a question that we might pose to our experts and to get a handle on it is that there may not be a direct line, And a lot of people find about soil health and climate change, right to talk about like what do we know about, like the relationship between climate change and so what have you learned about those bills.
Anna: So Ella reached out to Dr. Serita Frey to find out more. She is a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and a real fan favorite among the student body here at UNH. She teaches several classes including Studio Soils. Yeah we’re talking about dirt – some rocks and some air and water and a little organic matter - but those of you who don’t know how fun and exciting soil science can be, you just might want to check out this field. There’s even folks who compete in soil judging contests, where contestants observe soil profiles – these are layers of different kinds dirt – and they can name that profile, make assessments of the geomorphology, and even tell you a little bit about the conditions of that field over time. Dr. Frey’s research focuses on how human activities are impacting terrestrial ecosystems, with an emphasis on soil biota and nutrient cycling processes. So dirt should really be thought of as this whole other world supporting unique and interesting biodiversity. Kind of a jungle beneath our feet. I’ve included a link to an episode of Outside/In that highlight’s Dr. Frey’s work and illustrates this point by exploring the biodiversity inside the Lee Traffic Circle. A sterile-looking space if I’ve ever seen one. So check that out, but here’s Ella’s conversation:
Ella: I just had a couple of questions on HB 199, which was the update to the soil conservation plan in the state. They gave us an updated version of what the definition of soil health is in regards to this plan. And it stated as soil health means the overall composition of the soil, including the amount of organic matter in and hold water holding capacity of the soil, and the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals and humans. And I was wondering if you thought that was a sufficient definition?
Serita: Yeah, soil health is, you know, it's one of those broad terms that a lot of people use. Sometimes it's a bit of a buzzword, right? Everyone defines it differently. You know, I think the point here, the important thing here is that it's kind of focused on this idea of managing soil to maintain its function. As it says, as a system to sustain plants, animals and whatnot. I would add microbes to that, because soil, microorganisms and soil organisms generally are really critical to soil functioning. So, you know, many soil health metrics or soil health definitions include microorganisms, or soil organisms generally, as part of that definition. I mean, I think the important thing here is that they defined it based on you know, what they intend it to mean. Many people define soil health differently, depending on the context. I wasn't at the table, so I don't really know what their intention was specifically. So I can only speak from my own perspective.
Ella: This bill kind of tends to center around, it seems like a lot of the updates to this this bill center around adding specificity when it comes to mitigation, or adaptation to, climate change when it comes to like taking care of soil health. So I guess I just had the general question of how does climate change negatively impact soil health? And what do you think is like the most detrimental impact that climate change is having on soil health?
Serita: Yeah, so it cuts both ways right? You can have climate change affecting soil health but soils also are critically important for influencing the composition of our atmosphere and influencing climate change.
Actually what I, what I see from this bill is that they're actually talking about how we can through our management of soil reduce the release of greenhouse gases from soil. Again, I'm just interpreting what I'm reading, but I think when they are referring to mitigation to reduce sources of greenhouse gases, they're actually saying let's manage the soil so that we're reducing our impact on climate change.
Soils hold most of the carbon in the terrestrial biosphere. And so, if you depending on how you manage soils, they are a really critical source of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. Using agricultural management practices for example, that we know can lead to reductions in that release.
Anna: I’ll pop in here again to point out another resource in our show notes – a NASA video showing a year in the life of earth’s CO2. Please go check this out. It’s very cool. You can see a visualization of CO2 swirling around the globe and how accumulation ebbs and flows with the seasons. The narration makes the point that CO2 levels go down in the northern hemisphere during the summer because plants are actively growing and using CO2. A major tenant of regenerative agriculture teaches that keeping soils covered with green growing plant material can contribute to balancing these greenhouse gases. Cover crops can also maintain good soil health but maintaining good soil health maintains healthy populations of microbial life. This is all part of the equation when it comes to keeping greenhouse gasses in the ground instead of up in the atmosphere. Back to Ella’s conversation:
Ella: Alright, so what you're saying basically, is that what is less the focus is how climate change is impacting the health of soil and more how positive agricultural practices, mitigate climate change, or like reduce the effects?
Serita: So in this in this bullet point seven, where they talk about mitigation, I'm just looking at the document, right? So in that bullet point where they're talking about mitigation, my interpretation of that is that they're focused on things that we can do in terms of managing soil to reduce sources of greenhouse gas. Yes, how can we manage soils to have less of an impact on climate? But for sure, there are you know, climate change and other global changes are impacting soils by reducing potentially reducing organic matter levels and reducing soil fertility generally.
Ella: Okay, So that is definitely a problem, but it's not necessarily what this bill focuses on. So I guess going off of that, I was curious what you thought was like the most important thing for the general public to know about the threat of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors on soil health.
Serita: Soils, of course, are kind of the basis for sustainable ecosystems be that a natural system or an agricultural system, right? It's the soil that is stabilizing the plants and providing plants with their nutrition. Maintaining the ability of soils to function sustainably is a really critical thing to think about, and the way that climate and other global changes are impacting soil. I mean, the impacts are myriad, right? There are many, but they include things like loss of soil organic matter, which is the kind of nutrient reservoir in soils, reducing water holding capacity, the ability of soils to store water, loss of soil biodiversity, which then can potentially lead to loss of soil functioning.
But you also have to think about what is the global change that you're referring to? Climate change includes increasing temperatures, but it also includes changes in precipitation regimes. So that might mean more periods that are under drought, or it might also mean excess precipitation. You can also think about a global change as atmospheric nitrogen deposition or some other sort of pollutant as an example. The impacts that that global change has on soils is very different than what you might see if you're thinking about climate warming. I'm not giving you a very succinct answer, because it's pretty complicated, right?
Ella: Do you think that these updates will have any actual impact on the way that soil health and soil conservation is prioritized in the state of New Hampshire, and like just generally do you think practices in agriculture will be changed?
Serita: I think it's a good question. I don't know that there's any enforcement here right? I think this is a guiding principle, but there's no way to enforce this so I think it's really hard to know whether it will happen. I mean that's not a very satisfactory answer.
But anytime we're talking about soils, it's a positive thing because I think we don't think about soils. We walk on them every day and we really don't think about how critically important they are to the functioning of ecosystems again not just our natural ecosystems, but our agro ecosystems too. There's just so much that happens in the soil that's critical for Ecosystem Sustainability. I think we neglect soils and so, you know, I'm happy to see that it's being discussed at the level of the state legislature. While you could always kind of improve the language or change the language and make it more specific or make it more enforceable or whatever. I think the fact that, that we're talking about soil in this context is great, and you know I hope that it passes, and that we continue to have these conversations.
Ella: I gotta be honest, before I took on this bill as part of the project, I didn't really know very much about this at all. I didn't really think about it very much at all. And then I was like, Oh, my God, this is so important. Like, why is that talked about more?
Serita: It's a well kept secret for some reason. Yeah.
Anna: This is all really cool stuff and, of course, we are just scratching the surface. Dr. Frey recommended some other videos, which I included in the show notes. I’ll also put in a plug for part one of Ella’s work following HB199 where she covers the role of soil conservation on farm resilience – and how soil health practices can help with mitigating some of the extreme weather patterns that we’re facing along with climate change. So thanks so much to Serita Frey and thanks to you for listening!
Relative to New Hampshire is a production of UNH Cooperative Extension, an equal opportunity educator and employer. All music is used by permission or by creative commons licensing. UNH Cooperative Extension is a non-partisan organization, the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of the university, its trustees, or its volunteers. Inclusion or exclusion of commercial enterprises in this podcast does not equate endorsement. The University of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Counties, and the US Department of Agriculture cooperative to provide Extension programming in the Granite State. This podcast was made possible by the UNH Extension Internship program - if you’re interested in supporting great work like this for the future, learn more at www.extension.unh.edu/internships.