Measuring What Matters: The RHEA x MOTHERLAND Partnership for Living Soil
When we talk about regeneration, we often picture green fields, abundant harvests, and thriving communities. But true regeneration begins deeper, in the soil, in that invisible layer that sustains life, culture, and hope. And yet, even in 2025, while “soil health” has become a global buzzword, there is still no universal standard for what it actually means. There are no consistent global benchmarks, no single set of metrics that capture the immense diversity of soils across regions, climates, and continents. What “healthy soil” looks like in Siaya County, Western Kenya, is not the same as in Northern Portugal or Southern Germany.
That’s precisely why our new collaboration with RHEA Soil Health Management is so significant, because it marks the beginning of measuring regeneration, not just believing in it.
MOTHERLAND: Orchestrating Regeneration at Ecosystem Scale
At MOTHERLAND, we see ourselves as an ecosystem orchestrator, a bridge between local farmers, African startups, and global partners who share one mission: to lift smallholder farming communities out of poverty through regenerative agriculture, fair markets, and lasting local value creation. Our approach goes beyond traditional development. We work hand in hand with African innovators, agritech companies, community-based organizations, and local schools, to co-create systems that allow farmers to produce better, waste less, earn more, and regenerate their land.
Healthy soils are the foundation of that transformation. When soil is alive, fertile, and rich in microbial life, farmers spend less on chemical inputs, face fewer crop failures, and recover faster from droughts.
Better soil means better yields. Better yields mean less post-harvest loss, the biggest hidden cause of poverty among smallholders. And less loss means farmers finally have something left to sell at a fair price. This is what MOTHERLAND stands for: a future where the value created in agriculture stays within the communities that produce it, not extracted by intermediaries, but reinvested locally, building resilience from the ground up.
Who is RHEA and why we partner
Rhea Soil Health Management is a Kenyan agritech company transforming how soil health is diagnosed and managed. Through affordable, rapid soil testing technologies and AI-driven agronomic insights, Rhea empowers farmers to understand what their soil needs, why it matters, and how better nutrient decisions lead to improved yields, lower losses, and stronger incomes.
Their model goes beyond testing, it builds long-term soil intelligence. Rhea offers both on-site soil analysis using portable devices that measure pH and macronutrients, and comprehensive lab testingthat reveals deeper chemical and biological properties. Each test result is translated into clear, crop-specific recommendations, accessible digitally and even through WhatsApp, where farmers and field officers can receive real-time feedback in local languages.
In this partnership, MOTHERLAND mobilizes and coordinates farmer groups, supports sampling logistics, and integrates RHEA’s services directly into our digital platforms. Farmers can now request, track, and receive soil testing results through familiar MOTHERLAND channels, seamlessly connecting data with everyday practice.
RHEA, in turn, onboards our farmers into their digital ecosystem, provides devices and sample materials, trains lead farmers and staff, and ensures that every report includes actionable insights tailored to the crops farmers actually grow.
The collaboration launches with a pilot phase of 1,000 farmers, large enough to produce meaningful insights, yet focused enough to refine workflows, digital experience, and behavior change at the community level.
Defining and measuring soil health
The FAO defines soil health as “the capacity of soil to function as a living system that sustains plants, animals, and humans.”
It’s not only about productivity, it’s about the soil’s ability to filter water, store carbon, and support biodiversity. Scientists now agree that soil health is a composite of physical, chemical, and biological dimensions. Physically, it’s about structure, porosity, and water infiltration. Chemically, it depends on nutrient balance, pH, and organic carbon. Biologically, it’s about the diversity and activity of soil microorganisms, the living web that drives all regeneration.
Yet, as multiple research reviews (FAO 2021, USDA NRCS 2023, MDPI Soil Biology Review 2024) emphasize, there are no global thresholds. Healthy soil in one ecosystem may look degraded in another. Soil vitality must be assessed relative to its own baseline, not in comparison to faraway standards.
That’s why our collaboration with RHEA begins with baseline mapping. Together, we are measuring where the soils of Siaya County stand today, physically, chemically, and biologically, accompanying our regenerative practices. Over the coming seasons, we will re-measure and track whether the soil becomes richer in organic matter, more porous, more biologically alive. Whether it holds water longer. Whether it recovers faster.
This is how regeneration becomes tangible, measurable change, rooted in data, guided by farmers. This is actually ancient wisdom and you know by heart when your land is fertile but due to plenty of systemic challenges we have lost the connection to our lands.
Beyond data: Soil as living infrastructure
What makes this partnership special is not only its scientific rigor but its human depth.
Through our data and MOTHERLAND networks, we are building one of the first farmer-centered soil intelligence systems in East Africa, linking soil vitality with farmer income, post-harvest efficiency, and community wellbeing. We see this as part of a larger system change: regeneration not as a niche practice, but as a new economic logic, where the soil, the farmer, and the market are connected in a circular, fair, and transparent way.
Healthy soils are the quiet engines of this transformation. They reduce dependency on imported inputs, lower costs, increase yields, and make smallholder farmers more resilient. They directly reduce post-harvest losses by improving the quality and consistency of crops. And by creating traceable, data-backed production systems, they open access to fairer markets, where farmers are not invisible suppliers, but recognized partners in global value chains.
Listening to the Earth
This collaboration is not just about measurement , it’s about relationship. It’s about learning to listen to the soil, to understand how it responds when cared for differently, and to rebuild the trust between people and the land they depend on. By combining scientific precision with community knowledge, RHEA and MOTHERLAND are co-creating a living experiment in what regenerative transformation looks like, one that starts below ground, but reaches all the way to how value, dignity, and opportunity flow through an ecosystem.
Because regeneration doesn’t start with the plant. It starts with the soil. And from there, with everything that grows out of it: food, livelihoods, and a future worth living.