Local farm profits by using soil health management system

Baxter Farms in Georgetown, Del. has experienced increased profitability in recent years by decreasing expenses with a soil health management system of no-till production with cover crops.

With Jay Baxter's family and employees by his side, the fourth-generation farm grows corn, soybeans, sweetcorn, lima beans and small greens along with chickens and flowers.

Although the operation was already working with no-till practices, Baxter Farms started a new no-till cover crop program in 2002 with the help of the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Soil Health Institute and the National Association of Conservation Districts.

The groups facilitated a projects titled "Economics of Soil Health Systems to Enhance Adoption and Environmental Benefits." The purpose of this agreement was to assess, demonstrate and com- municate the economics of soil health-promoting practices and systems to increase adoption of soil health management systems to achieve environmental and onfarm benefits.

For Baxter Farms, it was a success.

After starting the no-till cover crops program in 2002 and adding acreage overtime, the farm saw a decrease in erosion, fertilizer application and soil compaction, an increase in water infiltration and improved water holding capacity. Cover crop species on the Baxter Farm included hairy vetch, cereal rye, annual ryegrass and tillage radish.

“The way we were doing things was not necessarily working as well as I’d wanted it to. The tillage practices that we had at the time, we were not seeing a return on the investment that I thought we should have seen. Help is harder to come by, equipment is more and more expensive to buy, invest in, and use and to maintain, and we started looking into other options. No-till seemed to kind of fit that bill,” Baxter said.

At the start of the program, the Soil Health Institute interviewed participating farmers, including Baxter, to obtain production information for evaluating economics of the soil health system based on a partial budget analysis. In this approach, the benefits and costs of a soil health system were assessed by calculating changes in revenue and expenses before and after adoption of that system.

After calculating the changes in net farm income associated with adopting a soil health management system, it was found that the net farm income increased overall by $52.09 per acre for corn and $5.39 per acre for soybeans. In 29 out of 30 participating farms from all over the United States, the soil health management system increased the net farm income by an average of $65 per acre, according to the study.

In other words, it costs producers $14 less per acre to grow corn, $7 less per acre to grow soybeans and $16 less per acre to grow all other crops when utilizing a soil health management system.

“We’ve seen some interesting changes in our soil as we’ve been adopting these practices,” he said.

“We’ve been steadfast in moving forward with these practices, and we are seeing visual changes, we are seeing economic changes, we are seeing improvements,” he added.

Baxter describes challenges with weather and manpower, but welcomes experimentation to find what’s best for his operation.

“With any change, there’s always a challenge; we decided that we were going to be extremely stubborn and overcome them,” Baxter explained.

More information on this study and the resulting data can be found online at https://www.nacdnet. org/about-nacd/what-we-do/soil/ shms/.