UPL signs a multi-year agreement with the Soil Health Institute to drive innovation in Agriculture

UPL Ltd. recently announce a two-year agreement with the Soil Health Institute (SHI), a non-profit organization whose mission is to safeguard and enhance the vitality and productivity of soil through scientific research and advancement. 

With this collaboration, SHI will evaluate the soil health at selected UPL research and development field stations around the world (including UPL’s OpenAg Farm in Brazil), provide soil health training for UPL field agronomists, and help establish R&D protocols for evaluating the impacts of management practices on soil health. 

Soil is the basis of our world’s agroecosystems that provide food, feed, fiber and fuel. By 2050, the world will be challenged to feed 9 billion people while also managing limited natural resources and the impact of climate change. UPL, with its mission to make every food product more sustainable, collaborates with partners, farmers, and key stakeholders to meet the future demand of agriculture, and improving soil heath will be essential to achieving that goal. 

Farmers adopting regenerative soil health systems can help our nations grow food for an expanding population, mitigate and adapt to climate change, improve water quality, and increase biodiversity. The partnership with SHI will advance understanding of the most beneficial and scalable regenerative practices agriculture can employ to meet the challenges of tomorrow, while at the same time, improving productivity and farmer livelihoods. 

“Our collaboration with SHI is a step towards understanding our soil in a much deeper way to provide the right solutions for farmers to enhance soil health, a key element for sustainable agriculture,” said Adrian Percy, Chief Technology Officer, UPL. “It exemplifies our belief in activating connections across the world’s agriculture system and powering new levels of sustainable growth, in line with our OpenAg TM purpose, an agriculture network that feeds sustainable growth for all. No limits, no borders.”

“Our research and training programs are focused to provide useful outcomes for farmers, the environment, and society,” said Dr. Wayne Honeycutt, CEO of the Soil Health Institute. “So far, most of our work has been in North America. 

This collaboration with UPL will allow us to further explore and translate soil health science into actionable management practices in other regions of the world, too,” said Honeycutt.