What Have We Learned from Early Cover Crop Adopters? Strategies for Expanding Cover Crop Use from Innovative Iowa Farmers.

In spite of the widely known agronomic and environmental benefits of cover crops, they are grown on only 2-3% of cropland in the Midwestern United States. A team of agronomists, sociologists and economists at Iowa State University hosted a series of farmer focus groups in July 2014 across the state of Iowa to discuss this conservation practice. The goal was to facilitate a discussion between early adopters and non-adopters that would clarify key factors needed for successful management of cover crops in corn-soybean crop rotations.  We found that systemic barriers emerged as a major theme of discussions, where farmers describe their ability to utilize cover crops only within the larger constraints of the current agricultural systems, including crop rotations, a lack of infrastructure and costs of production.  Further, innovative farmers utilizing cover crops for many years explained their operations as a “system” and strongly value soil health and protection.  From the synthesis of these conversations, we suggest several communication strategies and further research needs.  More “middle adopters” might successfully be targeted through quantifying risks and connecting farmers with early adopter farmer networks.  Common questions that arose in the focus groups included a desire for more information on cover crop species other than winter rye as well as economic valuation of soil that matched their positive experiences with services such as erosion prevention.  We believe these lessons are valuable for scientists and practitioners working with cover crops to help direct future communication and research.