Cover crops use in Midwestern US agriculture: perceived benefits and net returns

Abstract

Despite being generally accepted as a promising conservation practice to reduce nitrate pollution and promote soil sustainability, cover crop adoption in Midwestern US agriculture is low. Based on focus groups, surveys and partial budgets, we calculated the annual net returns to cover crop use for farmers in Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota; and elicited farmers’ perceptions about the pros and cons of incorporating cover crops to their row cropping systems. The novelty of our methodology resides in comparing each farmer's practices in the portion of their cropping system with cover crops (typically small), against their practices in the other portion of their cropping system without cover crops. The resulting comparisons, accounting for farmer heterogeneity, are more robust than the typical effects calculated by comparing indicators across cover crop users and unrelated non-adopters. Our results highlight the complicated nature of integrating cover crops into the crop production system and show that cover crops affect whole farm profitability through several channels besides establishment and termination costs. Despite farmers’ positive perceptions about cover crops and the availability of cost-share programs, calculated annual net returns to cover crops use were negative for most participants.

Short‐run net returns to a cereal rye cover crop mix in a midwest corn–soybean rotation

“…These inconsistencies can be attributed to a variety of factors, including differences in the initial motivation for planting the cover crop, differences in production systems and cover crop management, and differences in geographies. As a result, Plastina, Liu, Sawadgo, Miguez, and Carlson (2018b) concluded that generic agronomic and economic recommendations should be avoided in favor of more regionalized and cover crop species‐specific recommendations.…”

“…Others have sought to quantify the economic costs and benefits of cover crop adoption using secondary producer data (Anderson, 2019; Monast, Sands, & Grafton, 2018; Plastina et al., 2018b, Plastina, Liu, Sawadgo, Miguez, & Carlson, 2018c; Plastina, Liu, F., W., & Carlson, 2018a). While these values serve as an informative baseline, reliance on producer records and expertise does not prove a causal relationship between cover crop adoption and reported cost and yield impacts (Monast et al., 2018).…”

“…While these values serve as an informative baseline, reliance on producer records and expertise does not prove a causal relationship between cover crop adoption and reported cost and yield impacts (Monast et al., 2018). Further, the authors themselves acknowledge inherent biases that limit the representativeness of these results, including sample selection bias (Plastina et al., 2018a, 2018b, 2018c) and small sample sizes (Plastina et al., 2018b, 2018c). Therefore, there continues to be a lack of information on the net returns to the farmer from incorporating cover crops into a Midwest corn–soybean rotation.…”

Strategic Grazing in Beef-Pastures for Improved Soil Health and Reduced Runoff-Nitrate-A Step towards Sustainability

“…The growing cognizance of scientists and producers on soil health and its implication on agricultural sustainability has propelled research works on creating management strategies for improving soil health [1][2][3] in various agroecosystems. Given the vast ecosystem services grazing lands provide [4][5][6], more effort is needed toward the development of soil health-focused grazing management strategies.…”

“…We expect an increase in plant-available nitrogen, lower runoff-nitrogen, and improved forage productivity. Pilon et al [30] reported that average nitrate losses from continuously grazed pastures and rotationally grazed pastures with fenced riparian buffer ranged from 0.3-1.8 kg NO 3 -N ha −1 and 0.03-5.53 NO 3 -N kg ha −1 , respectively. The Pilon et al [30] study was conducted in broiler litter fertilized pastures and authors were unsure of the underlying cause of higher nitrate in rotational pastures.…”