A recently published research paper, led by soil scientist and retired Ohio State researcher Warren Dick as well as two other scientists, Manbir Rakkar and Leonardo Deiss, examines the true motivation for why farmers might want to implement cover crops or reduce tillage. 

Examining motivation for planting cover crops is something we ask farmers in our own annual Cover Crops Operational Benchmark Study that was just released for the sixth year in a row. According to our survey, most farmers are not focused on the profitability of cover crops. Each year we ask those who participate in the survey to rank the level of benefit they’ve seen from their cover crops and rate their top three reasons for doing this practice. Among the 14 reasons growers can choose, increasing farm profits and yields came in eighth and ninth, respectively.

Instead, more growers are interested in the soil health benefits. Preventing erosion is one of the main motivators for cover crop users — 55.5% of all survey takers rated it as one of their top three reasons, and 34.2% rated it as their No. 1 priority. 

Cover crops certainly pay off in this regard — erosion prevention was rated the No. 1 benefit, once again, with all but 2% of growers stating that their cover crops provide some erosion protection. Nearly 64% said that cover crops offer the maximum benefit for erosion prevention.  

But what does Warren Dick’s research paper say about motivations for planting covers and implementing other conservation ag practices? And more importantly, what should be the primary motivation for growers to want to use these practices?

Here’s an excerpt from the abstract of the research paper:

“Practices such as no-tillage, cover crops, or diversification of crop rotation are thought to be capable of addressing climate change challenges while ensuring food security. Public and private sectors at national and international levels are currently incentivizing farmers to adopt these practices to increase soil carbon (C) levels, thus helping to mitigate climate change.

However, increasing soil C levels with an expectation of mitigating and adapting to climate change needs further evaluation. Reduced soil disturbance, retention of crop residues, planting cover crops, or diversification of crop rotations with perennials are indeed effective, especially in the long term (>10 years), in improving soil properties that enhance climate change adaptation, but not so much climate change mitigation. However, planting of cover crops, considered to be one example that represents conservation agriculture, is currently practiced on only 4.7% of cropland in the United States. 

Further, we question whether current programs that pay for C stored in soil are sufficient to incentivize farmers to change their operations due to the high cost to test soil C to validate their efforts. We propose that to promote wider adoption of sustainable conservation agricultural practices, and to make large-scale positive impacts through their use, farmers should be paid to “do the right thing” instead of paying them based on soil C accrual. 

The literature indicates that doing the right thing includes (1) continuous no- or minimum-soil disturbance, (2) permanent biomass soil cover, (3) biodiversity in crop rotations, and (4) applying or practicing these three principles on a continuous year-after-year basis. Paying farmers to “do the right thing” versus paying farmers for C credits will lead to much higher adoption rates of sustainable conservation agricultural practices by farmers. This will in turn lead to improved crop production and soil and environmental quality.”

I am curious what other growers think of these comments and what each of your own motivations for planting cover crops are. Do you plant them because you’re getting paid to do so or because like Warren dick said, it’s the right thing to do? 

NOTE: Click to read the full research paper from Warren Dick, Manbir Rakkar and Leonardo Deiss.