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New research from South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã State University's Ness School of Management and Economics finds that cost share programs help farmers overcome barriers to cover crop adoption and creates momentum for non-cost share participants to also adopt the practice. 

The research behind cover crops is clear. The sustainable agriculture practice enhances soil fertility and structure, improves soil infiltration and water storage, reduces soil erosion, controls weeds and pest and even improves cash crop yields. Cover crops also generate off-farm environmental benefits by scavenging excessive soil nitrogen in corn fields and decreases nutrient runoff into waterways.

However, the economic benefits of cover crops often take several years to fully materialize. In the meantime, farmers are saddled with upfront costs, like seed, planting and termination, that creates a barrier for widespread adoption. Besides cost constraints, farmers in South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã face other challenges when planting cover crops, including narrow planting windows and unpredictable cash crop yields.

"Additional costs, coupled with potential risks, may discourage many producers from cover crop adoption," said Tong Wang, an associate professor in South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã State University's Ness School of Management and Economics who has been conducting research on conservation agricultural practices for over a decade.

Recently, Tong and Hailong Jin, associate professor in the Ness School, published a study in which they explored the role of cost share programs in promoting cover crop adoption.

Over the years, an increasing number of cost share programs have been initiated to reduce financial barriers associated with cover crop adoption. The two main programs are the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Conservation Stewardship Program. Contracted farmers receive up to 75% of the cost for implementing cover crops. Past research has found that farmers who participate in these programs are more likely to allocate more acres to cover crops or plant cover crops on an increased share of acres.

"Cost sharing programs for cover crops also has an indirect effect on other conservation agricultural practices," Wang said, "leading to a considerable increase in both cover crop and conversation tillage acres among enrolled farmers."

Still, little research has been conducted on the long-term effects of cover crop adoption and cost share programs. By utilizing survey data from approximately 350 eastern South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã farmers between 2018 and 2021, Wang and Jin examined cover crop adoption years for those enrolled, and not enrolled, in cost share programs.

The survey data revealed 56% of the respondents — roughly 178 farmers — were cover crop adopters as of 2021. Of note, only 1% of the surveyed cover crop adopters indicated that they have since stopped using cover crops. Data analysis revealed there had been a significant increase in cover crop adopters following the 2019 flooding event in eastern South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã.

"In fields affected by extreme weather events such as floods, 41% of South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã producers indicated that they were likely to use cover crops," Wang said.

The study, which utilized interval regression models, revealed farmers enrolled in cost share programs are more likely to adopt cover crops at an earlier stage. Compared with the adopters who received no cost share, those who received cost share adopted cover crops two to four years earlier on average.

"We found that cost share programs significantly affected participants' duration of cover crop adoption," Wang said.

Wang further describes a "spillover" effect in which early cover crop adopters supported by cost share programs helped build momentum and raised overall adoption rates. This finding is supported by the fact that most recent cover crop adopters are actually paying the upfront costs on their own. According to the data, 71% of cover crop adopters were paying the upfront costs of cover crops without the help of cost share programs. Among producers who adopted cover crops for more than 10 years, 52% adopted without cost share programs. This share has increased remarkably over the years, Wang noted, as 82% of producers who adopted cover crops in the last three years of data did so without the help of cost share programs.

"The demonstrated benefits from adopted fields have likely contributed to a better understanding of cover crop benefits among nonadopters, especially when faced with extreme weather events, and facilitated their adoption decisions," Wang explained.

By incentivizing participants to adopt cover crops at earlier periods, cost share programs can help shift the adoption equilibrium and provide a long-term solution to sustainable agriculture, Wang noted.

"We found that adopters receiving no cost share constitute most of the recent cover crop adopters," Wang said. "By motivating some producers to become early adopters (10-plus years), cost share programs have indirectly incentivized more farmers to adopt at their own expenses in more recent periods."

Further studies should investigate this phenomenon in other regions, Wang noted.

The full study, titled "Role of cost share programs in promoting cover crop adoption: A new perspective," was published in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, an academic journal under the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association in 2025.

Funding for this research was provided by the South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã Corn Utilization Council.