Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and benefits of farming activities, and this variability generates a number of
trade-off outcomes that can be compared. Jolejole (2009) and Ma et al. (2012)
captured all three of these aspects of heterogeneity directly in their analyses of
the 2008 Crop Management and Environmental Stewardship Survey of Michigan
corn and soybean farmers.
The survey was motivated, in part, by a desire to understand why most
Michigan field crop farmers choose different cropping systems than the
corn-soybean-wheat rotations of the MCSE. In Michigan, corn and soybean
are widely grown, often in a two-crop rotation, but wheat is only sometimes
included in the rotation. In Michigan during 2006-2010, mean planted areas for
corn and soybean were 970,000 and 790,000 ha, compared to 250,000 ha for
wheat (NASS 2011). No-till crop farming has expanded greatly during the life-
time of the KBS LTER. By 2006, 48% of soybean land was farmed without till-
age in Michigan, which reflected the national trend of 45%. Rates for corn and
wheat were less than half this level (Horowitz et al. 2010), and only a fraction
of the no-till area was in permanent no-till, as in the MCSE. Cover crops, which
the MCSE uses to furnish nitrogen, augment soil organic matter, and prevent
soil erosion, were planted on less than 20% of U.S. commercial family farms in
2001, with rates slightly lower on grain farms (Lambert et al. 2006). The same
study found that fewer than 30% of farmers conducted soil tests before planting
corn and soybean crops.
The purpose of the survey was to understand why Michigan corn and soybean
farmers farm as they do, and how they perceive conservation practices like growing
wheat, planting cover crops, and reducing fertilizer rates. The survey used contin-
gent valuation methods to elicit whether farmers would be willing to adopt some of
these practices in exchange for payments.
The survey questionnaire asked respondents to answer questions regarding four
proposed cropping systems. The systems proposed to farmers were loosely based
on MCSE Reduced Input and Biologically Based systems, but the first two pro-
posed systems omitted wheat because it is less commonly grown in the region than
the other two crops. The proposed systems were:
A. a chisel-tilled corn-soybean rotation fertilized according to university
recommendations based on soil testing, including a pre-sidedress nitrate test
for corn;
B. same as system A with winter cover crops added;
C. same as system B with winter wheat added to the rotation after soybean;
and
D. same as system C but with fertilizer and pesticides reduced by one-third by
banding applications over crop rows.
In order to elicit their willingness to change practices in exchange for payments,
respondents were asked the following question:
“If a program run by the government or a nongovernmental organization
would pay you $X per acre each year for 5 years for using cropping system
(Y), how many acres of land would you enroll in this program?”
