The trouble with cover crops: Farmers’ experiences with overcoming barriers to adoption

Abstract

Cover crops are known to promote many aspects of soil and water quality, yet estimates find that in 2012 only 2.3% of the total agricultural lands in the Midwestern USA were using cover crops. Focus groups were conducted across the Corn Belt state of Iowa to better understand how farmers confront barriers to cover crop adoption in highly intensive agricultural production systems. Although much prior research has focused on analyzing factors that help predict cover crop use on farms, there is limited research on how farmers navigate and overcome field-level (e.g. proper planting of a cover crop) and structural barriers (e.g. market forces) associated with the use of cover crops. The results from the analysis of these conversations suggest that there is a complex dialectical relationship between farmers' individual management decisions and the broader agricultural context in the region that constrains their decisions. Farmers in these focus groups shared how they navigate complex management decisions within a generally homogenized agricultural and economic landscape that makes cover crop integration challenging. Many who joined the focus groups have found ways to overcome barriers and successfully integrate cover crops into their cropping systems. This is illustrated through farmers' descriptions of their 'whole system' approach to cover crops management, where they described how they prioritize the success of their cover crops by focusing on multiple aspects of management, including changes they have made to nutrient application and modifications to equipment. These producers also engage with farmer networks to gain strategies for overcoming management challenges associated with cover crops. Although many participants had successfully planted cover crops, they tended to believe that greater economic incentives and/or more diverse crop and livestock markets would be needed to spur more widespread adoption of the practice. Our results further illustrate how structural and field-level barriers constrain individual actions, as it is not simply the basic agronomic considerations (such as seeding and terminating cover crops) that pose a challenge to their use, but also the broader economic and market drivers that exist in agriculturally intensive systems. Our study provides evidence that reducing structural barriers to adoption may be necessary to increase the use of this conservation practice to reduce environmental impacts associated with intensive agricultural production.

Prairie strips improve biodiversity and the delivery of multiple ecosystem services from corn–soybean croplands

“…Longer crop rotations provide benefits similar to cover crops and may confer reduced levels of crop diseases and neutral financial impacts where there are markets for additional crops such as small grains and forages but require additional labor, equipment, and management skills (51). While prairie strips could be used with cover crops and/or longer rotations to potentially provide even greater levels of ecosystem services, the additional management complexity associated with adopting multiple practices may dampen farmers' enthusiasm for combined approaches (52). Perennial species used as dedicated energy crops offer a substantial opportunity for diversification to help meet both economic and environmental goals for the Midwest (18,53,54), but the levels of benefits realized are likely to be dependent on placement, crop species, management, and market factors (18,(54)(55)(56).…”

A critical review of the impacts of cover crops on nitrogen leaching, net greenhouse gas balance and crop productivity

“…One limitation of our analysis is that the majority of the studies collected were shortterm experiments (2-3 years). They play an important role in achieving more diverse and multifunctional agricultural systems (Blanco-Canqui et al, 2015;Schipanski et al, 2014), suggesting that further efforts are required to enable farmers to overcome all barriers for their widespread adoption (Roesch-McNally et al, 2017). We found that incorporating cover crops, specifically legume-non-legume mixed cover crops, into the crop rotation is beneficial for soils, the environment and crop productivity.…”

Carbon emissions from cropland expansion in the United States

“…Given the large emissions associated with US cropland expansion, our study also demonstrates a need to prioritize enhanced management of existing croplands and more appropriately weigh the costs of cropland expansion in meeting agricultural demand. The USDA, for example, could remove structural barriers to cover crop adoption to increase productivity while reducing emissions from croplands [77]. More broadly, studies suggest that both current and projected world demand could be met through production on existing cropland by closing global 'yield gaps,' reducing waste, modifying diets, and revising biofuel policy [78][79][80].…”