A late May, 2022 update on Healthy Soils legislation written by Steve Keleti:
Hello all,
Healthy Soils legislation in Minnesota and Oklahoma have been enacted. Brief summary below.
Minnesota:
HF3420 [LS], includes establishment of Soil Health Financial Assistance Program with $500,000 funding – signed by Governor May 26th
HF3765 [LS], appropriations, includes “$750,000 … to provide onetime state incentive payments to enrollees in the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) … The board may establish payment rates based on land valuation and on environmental benefit criteria, including but not limited to surface water or groundwater pollution reduction, drinking water protection, soil health, pollinator and wildlife habitat, and other conservation enhancements. The board may use state funds to implement the program and to provide technical assistance to landowners or their agents to fulfill enrollment and contract provisions.” – presented to Governor May 24th
Oklahoma:
HB4412 [LS], creating the Healthy Soil Program Act – vetoed by Governor May 26th, veto overridden and enacted May 27th
To date, 22 states have enacted Healthy Soils legislation (AZ, CA, CO, CT, HI, IL, LA, MA, MD, ME, MN, NE, NH, NM, NV, NY, OK, TX, UT, VT, WA, and WV). With the enactment of the above bills, all of these states create, or empower state agencies to create, soil health programs with incentives for implementation, except Nebraska (technical, training and legal assistance, but not incentives), Illinois (program not created), and Hawaii (in 2022 legislation just passed, but not yet enacted).
These 22 states include 48.8% of U.S. farm acreage (438,902,561 of 900,217,576 acres, based upon 2017 National Agricultural Statistics Service Agricultural Census), and 51.6% of U.S. state population (170,551,879 of 330,759,736 people, based upon 2020 Census).
Best regards, Steven