Yoder Landon, Wardropper Chloe, Irvine Rachel, Harden Seth
Indiana University Bloomington, United States.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States.
J Environ Manage. 2025 Jan;373:123506. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.123506. Epub 2024 Dec 5.
Climate adaptation is vital for agriculture to manage the growing risks from more frequent droughts, floods, and extreme heat. Yet, adaptation measures remain underused in some of the most agriculturally productive regions, such as the U.S. Cornbelt. Cover crops represent a growing but still underutilized adaptation measure that offers co-benefits to farmers and society. In this study we examine farmers' perceptions of cover crops as a climate adaptation tool and explore the potential for integrating cover crops into existing crop insurance. We surveyed 1023 farmers in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa to examine what factors shape cover crop acreage, intensity (percent of farm with cover crops), and farmers' future cover crop plans through negative binomial and ordered logit regression models. In addition, we explored farmers' views on policy changes to incorporate the use of cover crops into crop insurance decisions. We found that farmers largely do not perceive extreme weather as a factor in their cover crop decisions, but they do see cover crops as effective in mitigating some impacts of extreme weather. Nearly twice as many farmers reported neutral or improving cash crop yields following cover crops as those who reported declining cash crop yields. Perceptions of negative cash crop yield responses correlated to fewer acres, lower intensities, and plans for fewer cover crops, while positive yield responses only predicted plans to increase cover crops. Program enrollment, self-efficacy, and reduced tillage were all associated with higher cover crop intensities, acres, and plans. Farm size was positively correlated with more acres of cover crops but also lower intensities. Farmers were interested in crop insurance discounts and carbon markets as policy instruments but ranked cost-share programs as their top option overall. Future research should further explore the link between training, experience, and financial costs to inform what policy instruments will most effectively support scaling up cover crop adoption.
气候适应对于农业应对日益频繁的干旱、洪水和极端高温所带来的不断增加的风险至关重要。然而，在一些农业生产最发达的地区，如美国玉米带，适应措施仍未得到充分利用。覆盖作物作为一种日益受到关注但仍未得到充分利用的适应措施，为农民和社会带来了多重益处。在本研究中，我们考察了农民对覆盖作物作为气候适应工具的认知，并探讨了将覆盖作物纳入现有作物保险的潜力。我们对伊利诺伊州、印第安纳州和爱荷华州1023名农民进行了调查，通过负二项回归模型和有序逻辑回归模型，研究了哪些因素影响覆盖作物的种植面积、强度（种植覆盖作物的农田比例）以及农民未来种植覆盖作物的计划。此外，我们还探讨了农民对政策变化的看法，这些政策变化旨在将覆盖作物的使用纳入作物保险决策。我们发现，农民在很大程度上并不认为极端天气是他们决定种植覆盖作物的因素，但他们确实认为覆盖作物在减轻极端天气的某些影响方面是有效的。报告称种植覆盖作物后经济作物产量持平或提高的农民数量几乎是报告经济作物产量下降的农民数量的两倍。对经济作物产量产生负面影响的认知与种植面积减少、强度降低以及种植覆盖作物的计划减少相关，而积极的产量反应仅预示着增加覆盖作物种植的计划。项目参与、自我效能感和少耕都与更高的覆盖作物强度、种植面积和计划相关。农场规模与更多的覆盖作物种植面积呈正相关，但强度较低。农民对作物保险折扣和碳市场作为政策工具感兴趣，但总体上把成本分担项目列为首选。未来的研究应进一步探索培训、经验和财务成本之间的联系，以确定哪些政策工具将最有效地支持扩大覆盖作物的采用。
