Approaching soil health from a practitioner perspective – Placing practices before indicators for Australian cotton and other producers

Soil health, how it is defined and characterized, has long been a topic of debate, but its importance has never been in doubt. The FAO has provided a unifying definition of what soil health is, but uncertainty remains as to how it will be measured. While finding suitable soil health indicators remains challenging, there is growing pressure from external drivers on land managers to demonstrate they are valuing their soil health. With these issues in mind, the Australian cotton industry developed a soil health framework with the potential to address both competing demands. Taking a lead from the human health management, which focuses on prevention through promotion of adoptable healthy activity principles, and incorporating principles from the existing soil frameworks, we conceived one that is relevant to Australian cotton farmers. The outcome promotes beneficial but non-prescriptive land management practices, which have mechanisms in place to financially reward growers for adoption and facilitates industry monitoring. The Soil Health Framework, also has potential for other agricultural sectors and represents a solution to the current impasse over soil health assessment.