Called cover crops, they top the list of tasks U.S. farmers are told will build healthy soil, help the environment and fight climate change.
Yet after years of incentives and encouragement, Midwest farmers planted cover crops on only about 7% of their land in 2021.
That percentage has increased over the years but remains small in part because even as farmers receive extra payments and can see numerous benefits from cover crops, they remain wary. Many worry the practice will hurt their bottom line — and a study last year indicates they could be right.
Researchers who used satellite data to examine over 90,000 fields in six Corn Belt states found cover crops can reduce yields of cash crops — the bushels per acre. The smaller the yield, the less money farmers make.
“I don’t want to abandon it, but as far as just going whole-hog with planting cover crops, that’s a tough thing for me to do,” said Illinois farmer Doug Downs, who plants cover crops only on a sliver of his land in a relatively flat region of east-central Illinois.
Cover crops are plants grown on farmland that otherwise would be bare. While crops like corn and soybeans are growing or soon after harvest, farmers can sow species such as rye or red clover that will grow through winter and into spring. They stabilize soil, reduce fertilizer runoff, store carbon in plant roots and potentially add nutrients to the dirt.
The practice is key to government efforts to sequester carbon in farmland to help reduce climate change, since there's general agreement planting the right off-season crops can pull carbon from the air and keep it underground in plant roots.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture promotes cover crops through several programs, starting with $44 million in payments during the 2023 fiscal year from the agency's Natural Resources Conservation Service for over 4,700 contracts to plant them on more than 850,000 acres (344,000 hectares). Additional funding was available for conservation practices, including cover crops, through the Inflation Reduction Act. Another program provided $100 million in extra benefits through federal crop insurance coverage to farmers who plant cover crops.
There's heightened interest in cover crops for carbon storage, though the effectiveness depends on the soil, plant variety, temperature and other factors.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has put so much stock in cover crops that it recently launched a social media campaign with Nick Offerman, featuring the Parks and Recreation TV show actor buried in dirt while promoting the practice. The environmental group has encouraged Congress to give farmers more lucrative financial incentives to plant the crops.
Source: kbia.org
Photo Credit: gettyimages-eugenesergeev
Categories: Illinois, Crops