Economics of Long-term Soil Health Practices

This project is assessing the economic costs and benefits of implementing soil health practices (particularly, cover crops and no-tillage) on Northeast and North Central US agriculture. It leverages data from long-term agricultural research projects that include treatments with soil health building practices. 

Practices that build soil health such as cover cropping and conservation tillage can improve crop resilience to increased drought and precipitation events. In addition, improved soil health could increase crop yields while removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, these benefits may only begin to be realized after 5-20 years, and there is limited information on the economic impact of implementing soil health practices over time. This information is critical to broaden farmer adoption. 

An initial literature review revealed limited available information, especially in the Northeast, regarding the economic dimensions of soil health practices, which highlights the need for this work. Peer reviewed economic research from the project has found that cover crops enhance resilience to extreme weather and may be an effective adaptation strategy to climate change by mitigating the effects of excessive soil moisture. The researchers also found that no-tillage management increases profitability by reducing costs compared to similar tilled crop rotations and relative profitability increases the longer no-tillage has been implemented. On-going research is similarly assessing the relative costs and returns when including cover crops and cover crop mixtures in grain crop rotations.