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Barriers to cover crop adoption

An official with The Nature Conservancy points to several barriers holding back cover crop adoption.

Rich Biske, the Conservancy’s resilient waters director for Minnesota, says despite reducing erosion and nutrient runoff, cover crops are only on about 4 percent of farm acres in his state.

“It comes down to a few things, access to the seed to plant cover crops at that time of year (and) the equipment to get it planted. But there’s also some financial risk associated with (cover crops), or a perceived financial risk.”

He tells Brownfield there are also cultural hurdles to overcome.

“Frankly, in some parts of the state there just hasn’t been a practice of using cover crops. There has in some segments (of the state), but it might be less familiar for some farmers.”

Biske says The Nature Conservancy is partnering with farmers to break down some of those barriers by advancing on-farm solutions grounded in science.