Beyond Corn and Beans – Increasing Farm Profits with Precision Conservation.

There is increasing public and private desire to incorporate ecosystem service provision into agricultural systems, but this is limited by a) conflicts between economic and conservation goals and b) shortage of tools that enable effective operational management. Here we use Iowa, an agriculturally homogeneous state representative of the largest North American agroecosystem (the Corn Belt) to demonstrate that conservation goals can in fact be achieved by harnessing economic decision making at the sub-field scale. We use a novel computational framework integrating disparate but publically available data sets to reveal sub-field opportunities that increase overall farm profitability by incorporating conservation management into underperforming areas of fields.
By aggregating geospatial and statistical data with agronomic computing tools, we analyzed sub-field profitability for maize/soybean fields during 2010-2013 – four of the most profitable years in recent history – and ran a future projection for 2015, as commodity markets moderate towards equilibrium from recent highs. We included sensitivity analyses with the variables crop production cost, yield, and grain price.
While in 2010 to 2012, farmland operating at a loss of 250 US$ ha^-1 or more is negligible (between 18,000 and 190,000 ha), it increases to 2.5 Mha, or 27% of row cropped land in the 2015 projection. This unprofitable area shows high sensitivity to yield and grain price variability. Our approach suggests considerable opportunities for less intensive management options. It resonates with land managers that prioritize short-term economic gains over long-term conservation benefits, and differs substantially from the status-quo of “top-down” land management for ecosystem services.