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While conservation practices promote soil health and reduce the negative environmental effects from agricultural production, their adoption rates are generally low. To facilitate farmer adoption, we carried out a survey to identify potential challenges faced by farmers regarding conservation tillage and cover crop adoption in the western margin of the US Corn Belt. We found farmers' top two concerns regarding conservation tillage were delayed planting, caused by slow soil warming in spring, and increased dependence on herbicide and fungicides. Narrow planting window and lack of time/labor were perceived by farmers as the two primary challenges for cover crop adoption. Some sense of place factors, including the commonly included dimensions of attachment, identity and dependence, played a role in farmers' perceived challenges. For example, respondents more economically dependent on farming perceived greater challenges. We found that farmers' challenge perceptions regarding reduced yield and lack of time/labor significantly decreased as years of usage increased, implying that time and experience could dilute some challenges faced by farmers. Our findings indicate that social network use, technical guidance and economic subsidies are likely to address the concerns of farmers and facilitate their adoption of conservation practices.
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Scaling up conservation agriculture: An exploration of challenges and opportunities through a stakeholder engagement process
Abstract Increasing the resilience of agricultural landscapes requires fundamental changes to the dominant commodity production model, including incorporating practices such as reduced tillage, cover cropping, and extended rotations that reduce soil disturbance while increasing biological diversity. Increasing farmer adoption of these conservation systems offers the potential to transform agriculture to a more vibrant, resilient system that protects soil, air, and water quality. Adoption of these resilience practices is not without significant challenges. This paper presents findings from a participatory effort to better understand these challenges and to develop solutions to help producers overcome them. Through repeated, facilitated discussions with farmers and agricultural and conservation professionals across the U.S. state of Michigan, we confronted the policy, economic, and structural barriers that are inhibiting broader adoption of conservation systems, as well as identified policies, programs, and markets that can support their adoption. What emerged was a complex picture and dynamic set of challenges at multiple spatial scales and across multiple domains. The primary themes emerging from these discussions were barriers and opportunities, including markets, social networks, human capital, and conservation programs. Exacerbating the technical, agronomic, and economic challenges farmers face at the farm level, there are a host of community constraints, market access and availability problems, climatic and environmental changes, and policies (governmental and corporate) that cross‐pressure farmers when it comes to making conservation decisions. Understanding these constraints is critical to developing programs, policies, and state and national investments that can drive adoption of conservation agriculture.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1832042
- PAR ID:
- 10361715
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Environmental Quality
- Volume:
- 52
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0047-2425
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 465-475
- Size(s):
- p. 465-475
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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