FACTORS AFFECTING ADOPTION OF COVER CROPS AND ITS EFFECT ON NITROGEN USAGE AMONG US FARMERS

OUTLINE

Introduction

Literature Review

Data

Methodology

Results

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Changing environmental concern

Changing agricultural practices

Multifunctional agriculture

- besides providing traditional products, agriculture provides many public goods and services

INTRODUCTION

Technology adoption Water conservation and organic

production practices Cover Cropping

Increased yield Decrease Nitrogen (N) leakage

LITERATURE REVIEW

Olaf Erenstein (2003) and Ngouajio et al. (2002)

Cover crops help increase soil fertility and weed management constraints

U.M. Sainju et al (2002) and Larson et al. (2001) Use of cover crops can provide N to the next crop,

conserve N concentration through mineralization and erosion, and reduce nitrogen fertilizer requirements

Tonitto et al. (2005)

Nitrate leaching was reduced by 40% in legume-based systems

OBJECTIVE

Identify determinants of cover crop adoption.

Understand the change in the probability of adoption of cover crops by demographic, socio-economic, and agronomic characteristics.

Analyze how N management varies by farm relative to adoption or non-adoption of this technology.

Estimate the change in N use for those who adopted and didn’t adopt cover crops by demographic, socio-economic, and agronomic characteristics.

DATA

The survey conducted in 2009 with collaborators from 6 universities (NSF funded Project)

7 states in MRB – IL, IN, IA, OH, MI, MN, and WI

2 ERS regions (Northern Crescent – IL, IN, IA, OH; and Heartland – MI, MN, and WI)

233 organic & 212 conventional farmers

Data for 2008 production year

Organic farmers only in this analysis

DATA

Variables Demographic – ERS region, age, farm income,

education, experience;

Socioeconomic - farm size, proportion of rented land, livestock, rented/not, cover crops, and information sources for N decision making – other farmers who adapted cover crops, other farmers relying on commercial N, organizations promoting cover crops, and organic fertilizer dealers;

Agronomic – all CRP payments, slope (more than 6%), no till used, rotation with winter cover crops, tile drainage,

METHODOLOGY

Two-Stage model

6) Test of Endogeneity using Smith Blundell (1986) two-step procedure

RESULTS

Cover_crop Coefficient Standard Error Marginal Effect

Op. age** 0.038486 0.01888 0.015301

Farm size (acres) 0.000367 0.000148 0.000146

Total farm inc. (in $100,000) **

-0.12938 0.053405 -0.05144

Op. education -0.07002 0.136631 -0.02784

Years of experience** -0.1314 0.053542 -0.05224

Expsq** 0.00226 0.001036 0.000899

Share of rented field -0.11276 0.114789 -0.04483

Region (Northern Crescent )

-0.42167 0.267113 -0.16671

Isds_cov* 0.232812 0.131134 0.092562

Isds_org 0.114494 0.116085 0.045521

Isds_ode* -0.21059 0.115494 -0.08373

All conservative payments*

0.54105 0.328359 0.209468

Slope -0.41399 0.355918 -0.1637

_cons -0.66191 1.19023

Estimation Results from Probit Model (first stage)

* - 10% significance, ** - 5% significance

RESULTS

Nitrogen Coefficient Standard

Error

Marginal Effects

Probability (%)

AdoptersNon-

adopters

Predicted values of cover crop**

-168.504 79.5384 -0.45787 -68.1958 -96.3545

Op.’s education -24.1739 16.33009 -0.06569 -9.78348 -13.8232

Farm size (acres) 0.010749 0.008847 0.00003 0.00435 0.006147

Total farm inc. (in $100,000) *

-6.16218 3.769868 -0.01674 -2.49391 -3.52367

Livestock* 56.18214 33.73149 0.153574 21.60315 30.12598

No-till used 248.0961 177.8572 0.421492 154.1898 200.1675

Tile drainage -41.0329 32.15755 -0.11175 -16.2936 -22.9094

Slope -44.1224 48.14568 -0.12105 -16.806 -23.4059

Rented** -75.7667 32.14944 -0.20624 -28.9987 -40.3042

Rotation with winter cover crops**

86.94256 41.66603 0.225794 38.07737 53.90144

Isds_com -7.76554 14.87927 -0.0211 -3.14282 -4.44051

_cons 168.9228 90.32249

Estimation Results from Tobit Model (second stage)

* - 10% significance, ** - 5% significance

CONCLUSION

Farmers’ age (+) and experience (-) had significants effect on cover crop adoption.

Conservation payments positively affected the adoption of cover crops.

Interacting with other farmers who were using cover crops increased the probability of adoption, but organic fertilizer dealers had negative effect on adoption.

If the field is rented then the nitrogen use decreased by 29 and for adopters and 40 pounds/acre non-adopters.

Cover crop adoption significantly decreased nitrogen use by farmers (68 and 96 pounds/acre for adopters and non-adopters respectively)

THANK YOU

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