I would like to offer each of you a challenge. Stop what you are doing for just a couple minutes and go outside onto a patch of grass or other natural space. Take a deep breath, then reach down and touch the soil beneath you. Afterwards, come back and keep reading, I’ll wait.

Thanks for doing that! The reason I asked you to go outside is because today is Earth Day and it is hard to appreciate what that means from the confines of a house, an office or whatever other interior space you might be in while reading this. The Earth, at its most pure, is the ground beneath us. It is the clean air we breathe when we take a deep breath outdoors. It is the clean water we drink and use to water plants and crops or provide to animals.

While these resources can feel limitless at times, they are in fact finite, and they require our care to ensure their availability for future generations. It takes about 400 years for an inch of soil to form. Many parts of this country have struggled with crippling drought limiting their access to water while other areas struggle to combat pollution in the lakes and rivers that provide their water. Air quality is equally important and choices we make can impact communities far away.

Because these vital resources are limited and threatened, we must work together to protect them for future generations. That commitment is the daily mission of my staff and I at USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Indiana. We have dedicated staff who work in every county in Indiana and are committed to working directly with agricultural producers and private forestland owners to protect your soil, ensure you have the water you need for your fields and animals, and properly address air quality issues on your land.

Since our founding as the Soil Conservation Service, we have strived to help you help the land while investing in the future of our planet. It does not matter if you are a farmer growing thousands of acres of crops, a backyard gardener growing a few vegetables for your family, a forestland owner who enjoys hiking and hunting, or you simply enjoy being outdoors when the weather is nice. We each have a role to play in conserving and protecting our vital natural resources and ensuring future generations can experience and access them.

For farmers, the resources on your land are of vital importance. Soil eroding off your fields is a costly loss that cannot be replaced. It must instead be protected. A suite of soil health conservation practices have proven to do just that while also ensuring profitability. Excess nutrients washing off your fields not only negatively impact downstream water sources, but they also represent wasted inputs when every dollar counts. We have resources to help you conserve resources, implement conservation plans and implement the practices specifically tailored to you and your farm’s needs. Whether that is direct financial assistance through one of our programs or free technical assistance from one of our many experts. No two farms are the same and our experts will work with you, one-on-one, to meet the needs of your farm and help invest in protecting and preserving it.

If you own forestland, we can help you implement management plans to reduce invasive species, build trails that won’t erode in heavy rain and build wildlife habitat to attract native species. We have the resources available to help you improve the health of your forests, which can increase your enjoyment in the short term and possibly increase the value of the timber in the future.

Do you just have a small plot of vegetables? You can also help make an impact in protecting our planet. Cover crops can help even small spaces. Adding a compost pile to your backyard can reduce food waste that ends up in landfills and provide nutrients to your garden. Or you can plant native pollinator plants and milkweed to help provide food sources for struggling pollinator species such as bees and the monarch butterfly.

No matter your role or your touchpoint with the outdoors, let us all commit on this Earth Day to investing in our planet whether that is financially, through time spent outdoors or by changing a behavior for the positive. If you are interested in learning how Indiana NRCS can help, please visit us at nrcs.usda.gov/Indiana and use the service locator to contact your local district conservationist.

Original source can be found here.