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Soil Benchmark – A useful tool for developing your soil management plan
Soil Benchmark – A useful tool for developing your soil management plan
Post date
June 2024
Have you heard of Soil Benchmark?
A useful tool growing in popularity as it offers farmers (in England, Scotland and Wales) a cost-effective alternative for creating soil management plans that meet the requirements of DEFRA SFI Policy.
Frequently used by rural advisers and agronomists, Soil Benchmark allows farmers to quickly and easily meet all the requirements of the new SAM1 option in SFI. The use of data from the Environment Agency, Ordnance Survey, and British Geological Survey, means the system provides all the information needed for meeting DEFRA’s requirements when forming soil management plans.
The ‘Smart Proposals’ provided by Soil Benchmark, are based on soil texture, slope, land use, and other environmental attributes. The system also identifies sensitive areas such as SSSIs, boreholes and water features and allows farmers to make edits to their auto-generated plans, ensuring further accuracy to proposals and risk scores.
AKC are working with Soil Benchmark to do this on your behalf as a client service or you can undertake this independently.
To get started either get in touch with your AKC consultant or simply go to:
https://plan.soilbenchmark.com/
And….
- Create an account
- Add your farm (using your SBI number) – this allows the platform to bring up your RPA field boundary data, and pre-populate your field-by-field risk assessment and ‘Smart Proposals’
- Review your plan - using your knowledge of the land, review the information provided and make any edits you feel necessary, and upload the required SOM test results
- Discuss with Agronomist/Consultant – review the draft plan with your AKC consultant to ensure you are happy with it, before upgrading to access the full Soil Management Plan report which is required for SAM1.
Other benefits include:
- An independent platform, guided by data from leading environmental organisations and to offer unbiased, data driven assistance
- Nationally trusted datasets and cutting-edge analysis
- Completely free to start. For a full soil management plan, AKC charge £200 per farm fee per year
- Easy to use interface
- 30-minute demo available
