Elaine Ingham, Charlotte Kahn Join Soil4Climate Advisory Board

​THETFORD, Vermont – March 8, 2018 – Soil4Climate today proudly welcomed to its Advisory Board Elaine Ingham, Ph.D., a globally recognized soil microbiologist, and Charlotte Kahn, a well-known leader in the fields of social innovation and philanthropy. Ingham and Kahn join more than 30 other distinguished members of the Soil4Climate Advisory Board, comprised of individuals with expertise in disciplines including climate science, agricultural research, farming, policymaking, journalism, and environmental activism.

​Elaine Ingham, Ph.D., is best known as originator of the Soil Food Web concept, a holistic, unifying theory describing how all life found in soil – ranging from the visible to the microscopic, from plants and animals to bacteria and fungi – interact through myriad relationships to assure a healthy soil ecosystem. Ingham’s work has provided an invaluable model for gaining insight into how regenerative agricultural practices are able to swiftly restore even highly degraded farm and rangeland soils. Ingham is Director of Research at the Environment Celebration Institute’s farm in Northern California, where her focus is demonstrating methods of biological agriculture that grow plants without pesticides or inorganic fertilizers, and conducting replicated trials of plants grown in soil with and without the addition of microbial biology. She directs the Soil Food Web lab testing at the Institute, and has trained and certified many consultants around the world to offer these same services to growers in their local regions. Ingham formerly served as Program Chair of the Ecological Society of America and chief scientist of the Rodale Institute. Her online courses, intensive practical trainings, certification programs, and webinars are popular with academics and practitioners alike.

Charlotte Kahn founded and for many years served as the Executive Director of Boston Urban Gardeners, a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming vacant lots in low-income urban neighborhoods into community gardens.  Over time, the organization also offered neighborhood open space planning and training in urban land management and landscaping skills. Merging the organization with another, Charlotte then joined the Boston Foundation, Greater Boston’s community foundation, to direct the Boston Persistent Poverty Project, a six-city, Rockefeller Foundation-funded initiative. While at the Boston Foundation, she co-founded and directed the Boston Indicators Project, bringing together hundreds of Bostonians to set goals and measure progress across ten sectors – from civic vitality to the environment, housing, health, and transportation. A national and global model, the Boston Indicators Project garnered numerous awards.  All too well aware of the ways in which global trends are now affecting every community, Charlotte retired in 2013 to focus on climate change. She now writes a bi-weekly column for her local newspaper and works on biological approaches to climate action with a particular interest in biochar as a means of enhancing soil health and sequestering carbon.

“We are thrilled to welcome these two outstanding individuals to the Soil4Climate Advisory Board. Their knowledge, experience, and networks will be of invaluable assistance as together we work to accelerate the worldwide expansion of the climate-friendly agricultural revolution, healing land and reversing global warming by returning carbon to soil,” said Seth Itzkan, cofounder and codirector of Soil4Climate.

Soil4Climate, a U.S.-based nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, advocates for regenerative cropping and grazing practices to improve soil fertility, increase the bionutrient density of food, restore wildlife habitat, prevent flooding, return flow to dried-up rivers, and revitalize pastoral communities while sequestering atmospheric carbon. Membership in the Soil4Climate Facebook group consists of over 7,700 scientists, farmers, policymakers, journalists, and concerned global citizens

A full listing of Soil4Climate’s Advisory Board members may be found at soil4climate.org/advisoryboard.

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Media Contact:
Karl Thidemann, Soil4Climate
(802) 753-0505‬
karl.thidemann@gmail.com