The financial cost of cover crops remains one of the most significant barriers preventing growers from implementing them on their farms. Several benefits of cover crops are hard to quantify in monetary terms, making it more difficult for farmers to justify the additional expense. Cover crop costs can vary drastically across operations, and farmers must perform a thorough cost analysis to determine whether cover crops fit their operations.

Cover crops often fail a cost-benefit analysis if only examined in the short term. Farmers who have successfully adopted cover crops frequently stress the need to consider them a long-term investment. Farmers must decide if these costs are worth the benefits they may not realize for several years.

Economic Decision Support Tool

The Cover Crop Economic Decision Support Tool, developed by Precision Sustainable Agriculture, is an online software that allows growers to perform a cost-benefit analysis of their cover crop practices.

Producers can input increases and decreases in operational cost and revenue resulting from cover crops. Allowing them to better assess how cover crops are impacting their bottom line.

Cover Crop Direct Costs

Direct costs are related to the actual management of cover crops. They are often the easiest to calculate since they pertain to input (seed), time, and equipment costs.

Planting

•  Seed
• Time/Labor
• Equipment

Termination

• Time/Labor
• Equipment

Additional Inputs

• Nutrients for cover crop (if applicable)
• Additional herbicide for termination (if applicable)
• Nitrogen to account for immobilization

Direct costs can significantly increase if additional equipment is purchased for cover crop management. Farmers need to decide if purchasing equipment is worth the expense to manage cover crops in a certain way. For example, a farmer may want to purchase a roller-crimper to terminate a cover mechanically and lay the residue down on the soil surface.

Cover Crop Indirect Costs

Indirect costs affect a farm’s cash crop. While cover crops may have several benefits for cash crops, they also have the potential for negative impacts, especially without proper management.These indirect costs are often listed as the “challenges” or “risks” of cover crops. They become an actual cost when they create economic damage to cash crops. Management decisions will influence the likelihood and severity of these challenges and costs.

• Decreased Soil Moisture
• Slower Soil Warming Temperatures
• Transfer of Pests or Pathogens
• Potential Yield Reductions

Cover Crop Opportunity Costs

The most notable opportunity costs are a foregone cash crop and the loss of income from a field in cover crops. Farmers need to decide if a cover crop's long-term benefits outweigh the cash crop's income for a given season. When making this decision, it is important to remember that cash crops often require more intensive management, and these costs need to be deducted from any foregone revenue when assessing the opportunity cost.

Time

Successfully managing cover crops requires a time commitment from growers, and this cost needs to be considered. The direct costs can account for time spent planting and terminating cover crops. However, many farmers must dedicate time to learning about and researching cover crops to implement them on their farms.Having adequate knowledge about cover crop management is crucial for success. Farmers need to determine if they can afford the time required to educate themselves on cover crop management to improve their outcomes.

References

• Bergtold, J. S., Ramsey, S., Maddy, L., Williams, J. R., & Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University. (2017). A review of economic considerations for cover crops as a conservation practice. In Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (pp. 1–15) [Journal-article]. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170517000278
• Duiker, S. W. (2023, October 31). Economics of cover crops. Penn State Extension. https://extension.psu.edu/economics-of-cover-crops