Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons^™

The Trouble With Cover Crops: Farmers’ Experiences With Overcoming Barriers To Adoption, Gabrielle E. Roesch-Mcnally, Andrea D. Basche, J. G. Arbuckle, John C. Tyndall, Fernando E. Miguez, Troy Bowman, Rebecca Clay

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Cover crops are known to promote many aspects of soil and water quality, yet estimates find that in 2012 only 2.3% of the total agricultural lands in the Midwestern USA were using cover crops. Focus groups were conducted across the Corn Belt state of Iowa to better understand how farmers confront barriers to cover crop adoption in highly intensive agricultural production systems. Although much prior research has focused on analyzing factors that help predict cover crop use on farms, there is limited research on how farmers navigate and overcome field-level (e.g. proper planting of a cover crop) and structural barriers …