National Healthy Soils Policy Network

“By being part of the Network, I have built relationships and connections with advocates around the country, and deepened my understanding of the most effective approaches to achieve meaningful policy change.”
- Maddie Kempner, Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont
Meet Our Members
Our member organizations from across the country are nonprofit organizations or coalitions which share a mission to serve and support sustainable, organic, beginning, minority and/or family farmers with education, training, organizing, and/or policy advocacy. Our members work in their states to advance farmer-informed policies that support farmers and ranchers in using practices that improve soil health and have other climate and environmental health benefits.
Hawaii Farmers Union United
Hawaii
HFUU's mission is to advocate and create vibrant and prosperous agricultural communities for the people of Hawaii Nei. Our vision is a Hawai’i in which farm families and their communities are respected, valued, and have achieved economic prosperity and social justice that restores regenerative, sustainable agriculture and food security.
Contact: Hunter Heaivilin
Land Stewardship Project
Minnesota
The Land Stewardship Project works to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture, and to develop healthy communities. LSP is dedicated to creating transformational change in our food and farming system. LSP’s work has a broad and deep impact, from new farmer training and local organizing, to federal policy and community based food systems development.
Contact: Amanda Koehler
Michigan Food & Farming Systems (MFFS)
Michigan
MIFFS is a farmer-led organization that supports beginning and historically underserved farm businesses by serving as a bridge to USDA service provider resources, subject matter experts, and wisdom from diverse farming communities throughout Michigan.
Contact: Hagan Capnerhurst
NOFA-NJ
New Jersey
The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey (NOFA NJ) has supported and advocated for organic farming and local food systems in the Garden State since 1985. From technical support to educational programming and policy advocacy, our work is dynamic, community-focused, and has lasting impacts throughout the entire food system. NOFA NJ is one of seven NOFA Chapters with a 50+ year history of advocating for organic farming, local foodsystems, and ecological restoration.
Contact: Cali Alexander
NOFA/Mass
Massachusetts
NOFA/Mass is a membership-funded non-profit organization. Through education and advocacy NOFA/Mass promotes organic agriculture to expand the production and availability of nutritious food from living soil for the health of individuals, communities and the planet. We welcome anyone who cares about the environment and our food system to join over 1000 other members and/or engage with our educational programs and advocacy efforts.
Contact: Rubén Parrilla
Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts (OACD)
Oklahoma
The Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts is a private, Nonprofit Organization representing the 84 state appropriated and 3 tribal conservation districts to enhance the natural resources for a better Oklahoma.
The OACD Healthy Soils Project is a voluntary effort to conserve the natural resources of Oklahoma by encouraging agriculture producers to participate in proven conservation practices.
Contact: Sarah Blaney
Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (Pasa)
Pennsylvania
Our mission is to cultivate environmentally sound, economically viable, community-focused farms, and food systems. We are just as much an organization administering farmer training, research, policy, peer education, and local food programs as we are a network of tens of thousands of farmers, food system professionals, and changemakers working together to advance regenerative and equitable agriculture at home in our own communities.
Contact: Andrea Hernandez-Rodriguez
Rural Vermont
Vermont
Rural Vermont organizes, educates, and advocates in collaboration with local and global movements to strengthen the social, ecological and economic health of the agrarian communities that connect us all. We are Vermont’s farmers, farmworkers, neighbors and community members committed to supporting and cultivating an equitable and vibrant economy and community. We believe community scale farms and the local food and relationships that they provide are at the heart of thriving communities and environmental sustainability.
Contact: Graham Unangst-Rufenacht
Western Colorado Alliance
Colorado
Our organizers provide our members with leadership and skills training, then support them as they identify issue campaigns with clear goals, plan strategies and deliver on those plans. In this way, we seek to make positive change, strengthen democracy and develop leaders who will become the decision-makers of the future.
Contact: Nick Allan
Dakota Resource Council
North Dakota
DRC’s mission is to promote sustainable use of North Dakota’s natural resources and family-owned and operated agriculture by building member-led local groups that empower people to influence the decision-making processes that affect their lives and communities.
Contact: Sam Wagner
Illinois Stewardship Alliance
Illinois
The Alliance is farmer-driven and eater-powered, which means we work closely with the heart of the food system to identify and untangle the deep-rooted issues in our food system, and work closely with eaters to shed light on these issues and use their purchasing power and political power to create change. By bringing these groups together, we are able to slowly recreate our food system – one that works for all.
Contact: Liz Moran Stelk
Maine Farmland Trust (MFT)
Maine
Maine Farmland Trust is a statewide organization that protects farmland, supports farmers, and advances the future of farming. Our goal is not just to protect Maine farmland, but to revitalize Maine’s rural landscape by keeping agricultural lands working and helping farmers, and their communities, thrive.
Contact: Shelley Megquier
New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group
New Mexico
The NM Healthy Soil Working Group is assembling a powerful network of agriculture and conservation organizations, urban and rural residents, consumers and producers alike, with the goal to significantly accelerate soil health stewardship in the state. We aim to catalyze widespread adoption of management principles that result in greater soil health and associated co-benefits, creating prosperous and strong land based communities, nutritious food, a healthy environment and a viable future for our planet.
Contact: Isabelle Jenniches
NOFA-NY
New York
NOFA-NY is an organization of farmers, gardeners, and consumers working together to create a sustainable regional food system that’s ecologically sound and economically viable. Through demonstration and education, we promote land stewardship, organic food production, and local marketing. We bring consumer and farmer together to make high-quality food available to all people.
Contact: Katie Baildon
Northern Plains Resource Council
Montana
Northern Plains organizes Montana citizens to protect our water quality, family farms and ranches, and unique quality of life. Our mission is to protect Montana’s greatest assets: the quality of our natural resources and the ability of citizens to shape the public policies that affect our land, our water, and our lives so that we may pass them on, unimpaired, to future generations.
Contact: Gusty Catherin-Sauer
Powder River Basin Resource Council
Wyoming
For 50 years, we have advocated for the responsible development of Wyoming’s energy resources. Using community organizing, connections with scientific, policy, and legal experts, and coalitions with other organizations, we wage effective campaigns to protect Wyoming’s air, land, and water quality and to promote sustainable agricultural practices and policies in the state.
Contact: Pennie Vance
SPROUT
Louisiana
SPROUT supports established and developing small-scale and sustainable farmers, community gardeners, and farm workers in Louisiana with technical and social support to build a stronger, more equipped community of growers in Louisiana and help all New Orleanians be part of a community food system.
Contact: Devin Wright
Western Organization of Research Councils (WORC)
North Dakota, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska
WORC’s mission is to advance the vision of a democratic, sustainable, and just society through community action. WORC is committed to building sustainable environmental and economic communities that balance economic growth with the health of people and stewardship of their land, water, and air resources.
Contact: Elizabeth Bean
Kansas Rural Center
Kansas
KRC's work is supported by public grants, private foundations, organizational partnerships, and contributions from individuals who care about the future of our land and our people.
For those who want a future in farming, who care about the environment, and who care about their communities and their food, KRC offers practical solutions, information, and analysis from a Kansas POV.
Contact: Tom Buller
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute
Wisconsin
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute's mission is to nurture the ecological, social and economic resilience of food and farming systems through education, research, policy, and market development. We envision an ever-creative cultural process in which farmers and consumers create agricultural landscapes with healthy regional systems of land use, food production and distribution.
Contact: Margaret Krome
NOFA-NH
New Hampshire
The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire (NOFA-NH) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to promoting organic, regenerative, ecologically sound farming, gardening, eating, and land care practices for healthy communities. We help people build local, just, and sustainable food systems.
Contact: Julie Davenson
Oregon Tilth
Oregon
Our goal is to capture the benefits — economic, environmental, and social — of sustainable food production and then share it with producers. We develop programs and services that make producing sustainable food possible. Furthermore, we serve as a trusted resource in a crowded landscape of food claims.
Contact: Chris Schreiner
RegeNErate Nebraska
Nebraska
RegeNErate Nebraska is a hub for communities, producers, and organizations across Nebraska to collaborate and build a unified and intersectional regenerative movement.
RegeNErate's mission is Regenerating our communities from the soil up by ensuring more Nebraskans have access to the networks, tools, and technical assistance to implement and advance an ethical, equitable, economical, and ecological agricultural system that is built by and serves all Nebraskans.
RegeNErate Nebraska envisions a full transition from an extractive industrial food production system in favor of a fully regenerative and healthy food system for all Nebraskans.
Contact: Graham Christensen
Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition
Vermont
Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition is a coalition of mostly Vermonters, representing grassroots activists and enthusiasts, organizations, and businesses that work with or for the land, water and climate. We are land managers, farmers, gardeners, seed savers, citizen scientists, conservationists, authors, consultants, educators, healers, organizers, and advocates of diverse backgrounds. We seek to cultivate diversity in our base.
Contact: Cat Buxton
Working Lands Alliance
Connecticut
The Working Lands Alliance is the statewide voice for farmland preservation efforts in Connecticut. Our alliance includes farmers, conservation and anti-hunger organizations, land trusts, local food advocates, and many others working together to protect Connecticut’s most precious resource – its farmland.
Contact: Kip Kolesinskas
National Partners
Our National Partners are allied organizations with whom we regularly share strategic insights and connections. We are grateful for the mutual support and collaboration in our common endeavors to support progress on state and federal policies that catalyze and hasten the equitable implementation of soil solutions to the climate crisis.
American Farmland Trust is a national organization dedicated to saving the land that sustains us by protecting farmland, promoting sound farming practices, and keeping farmers on the land. Our organization does this through a variety of approaches, from working with farmers and ranchers on the ground to adopt soil health practices, to advocating for policies at both the federal and state levels that provide financial and technical support that help farmers overcome barriers and successfully adopt conservation practices.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) is an alliance of 150+ grassroots organizations working to build a more equitable, sustainable farm and food future. As a member-led and driven coalition, we advocate for federal policy reform and lift up the voices of grassroots farmers and leaders in the sustainable agriculture movement. From creating new federal programs that invest in critical research and infrastructure to reforming policies that have inequitable impacts, we do the long-term work to identify issues, develop solutions, build grassroots power, and campaign to win. We act as a national ‘backbone’ organization for hundreds of grassroots groups that care about federal policy, building our collective voice for change in DC.
National Young Farmers Coalition
We are farmers and ranchers who steward the struggle to transform agriculture. We are an intersectional coalition that works for justice and collective liberation of our food and farm systems. We champion policies that resource connections to the land and foster our health in the face of climate crisis. We advocate for policies that recognize farming as a public service. We work in partnership with social justice movements for a future in which people, land, and relationships are respected. We aspire to stand in ever greater solidarity with global movements that advance human rights – especially the right to food and place.