Simulated Ecosystem and Farm-Level Economic Impacts of Conservation Tillage in a Northeastern Iowa County

Edward Osei, Syed H. Jafri, Philip Gassman and Ali Saleh
Additional contact information
Syed H. Jafri: Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Tarleton State University, Stephenville, TX 76402, USA
Ali Saleh: Texas Institute for Applied Environmental Research, Tarleton State University, Stephenville, TX 76402, USA

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: While the ecological benefits of no-till are largely indisputable, the economic impacts are less certain, and the latter may be partly to blame for lower-than-expected adoption of no-till. In this study, we contribute to a better understanding of the ecosystem and farm-level economic impacts of no-till, with Buchanan County in the northeastern region of the U.S. State of Iowa as the backdrop due to previously established data and model validation efforts in that region. Using the Agricultural Policy Environmental eXtender (APEX) and Farm Economic Model (FEM), we simulated two tillage scenarios—a conservation tillage baseline and no-till—for continuous corn and corn–soybean rotations in Buchanan County using gridded historical climate data. We find that no-till provides clear ecosystem benefits, except that soluble nutrient losses might actually rise. We also find that under current commodity prices for corn and soybeans, no-till is not as profitable as the conservation tillage baseline. For no-till to be at least as profitable as the baseline under current commodity prices, the yield penalty associated with no-till cannot be higher than 1.5% for corn and 0.8% for soybeans, or similar combinations that entail a revenue penalty of about $24,000 for an 809-hectare continuous corn or corn–soybean operation. Given the simulated yield penalties associated with no-till, corn and soybean prices would have to be substantially lower in order for no-till to break even. Consequently, incentives for conservation practice implementation may need to be tied to commodity prices and yield penalties in order to elicit greater adoption rates.

Keywords: conservation tillage; FEM; APEX; no-till; nutrient losses; surface runoff; sediment losses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/4/891/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/4/891/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:4:p:891-:d:1126569

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().