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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