Abstract

Agricultural change depends not only on technologies and policies but also on the knowledge infrastructures through which farmers learn to interpret ecological processes and evaluate expertise. In recent years, many soil-health-oriented farmers have begun assembling learning networks that extend beyond conventional advisory systems. This article examines how such networks are formed and what role digitally mediated educators, here termed soil influencers, play within them. The study draws on qualitative interviews and drawing-based elicitation with ten soil-health-oriented farmers in Virginia, USA. The analysis explores how farmers conceptualise soil, how these understandings are shaped through learning pathways, and how they are enacted in everyday soil-care practices. The findings show that farmers often approach soil as a living and evolving system and assemble plural knowledge ecologies that combine peer networks, regional organisations, selective engagement with extension services, and practice-based educators encountered through books, podcasts, courses, and social media. The article argues that soil influencers function as emerging agricultural intermediaries whose authority rests on experiential credibility, demonstrable practice, and interpretive narratives that resonate with farmers’ situated ways of knowing. These dynamics point to shifting politics of agricultural expertise and raise questions about how public advisory systems might engage with emerging soil-health knowledge cultures.