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market needs to exist and they’ve also told me all of them offer farmers a $10-per-acre pay-
that, but they really like that idea.” ment on up to 200 acres.
It doesn’t cover everything,” Lydia English,
Bewildering .array .of .private .payment . strategic initiatives coordinator at Practical
programs .lure .farmers .to .cover .crops Farmers of Iowa, told Agri-Pulse. “But it helps
Big corporations and entrepreneurs also are lower the economic barrier for sure, which can
combining to drive the development of pro- be great, especially for those folks that might be
grams that will pay farmers to adopt cover newer and haven’t recouped costs in any other
crops or, in some cases, buy credits for the car- way yet.”
bon their cover crops and other practices can Research has shown that it can take up to eight
sequester in the soil. years for the agronomic benefits of cover crops
Not all of these programs are the same — in to start to cover the costs, said Shalamar Arm-
fact, these programs vary drastically across the strong, a Purdue University economist.
landscape. Some are specifically geared towards “If these farmers can have some kind of
cover crops, while others may require producers resources coming back … that’s going to ease
to not only add cover crops, but several other the risk,” he said.
practices like no-till.
Producers enrolled in these programs can also
Some programs pay farmers simply for under- receive funding from government programs and
taking a practice such as cover crops. Other can stack these payments to help cover their
programs pay based on the amount of carbon expenses. However, participating producers are
that they store, or sequester, in the soil. All of not allowed to enroll in other private incentive
these programs are pointing to a future when programs.
energy companies, airlines, food companies
and other sectors will routinely buy ag car- Additionally, producers are required to follow
bon credits to offset their own greenhouse gas various rules like attending soil health field
emissions. days, participating in surveys, providing docu-
mentation of the cover crop acres they farmed
Research has found that cover crops could and discussing a cover crop plan with a PFI
sequester anywhere from 0.16 to 0.77 metric agronomist.
tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per acre,
according to a report by the American Farm- “We’re flexible on what they seed and when they
land Trust. When combined with no-till and seed it, how they do it, whether it’s an overwin-
strip-till practices, the carbon sequestration tering species or a winter kill species,” English
potential rises to a range of 0.76 to 1.13 tons said. “We just want them to do cover crops and
per acre. to be happy with that system.”
Other programs are broader and incentivize
Several major companies, including PepsiCo,
ADM, Bunge, Bayer, Cargill, Unilever, and several practices, including cover crops, based
Lifeline, have already partnered with a farm- on a specific environmental goal. Some of the
er-led organization, Practical Farmers of Iowa, clearest examples of this are carbon capture
to pay farmers specifically for planting cover programs, which pay producers with the inten-
crops. These programs are offered to producers tion of sequestering carbon.
through the companies and grain elevators they These programs have become increasingly more
sell to and though they vary somewhat, almost prevalent as talk of the need to sequester carbon
32 www.Agri-Pulse.com
