1. Gnel Gabrielyan, Sachin Chintawar, and John Westra F ACTORS A FFECTING A DOPTION OF C OVER C ROPS AND I TS E FFECT ON N ITROGEN U SAGE AMONG US F ARMERS CNREP 2010, New Orleans, LA, May 26-29, 2010

2. O UTLINE  Introduction  Literature Review  Data  Methodology  Results  Conclusion

3. I NTRODUCTION  Changing environmental concern  Changing agricultural practices  Multifunctional agriculture - besides providing traditional products, agriculture provides many public goods and services

4. I NTRODUCTION  Technology adoption Water conservation and organic production practices Cover Cropping  Increased yield  Decrease Nitrogen (N) leakage

5. L ITERATURE R EVIEW  Olaf Erenstein (2003) and Ngouajio et al. (2002)  Cover crops help increase soil fertility and weed management constraints  U.M. Sainju et al (2002) and Larson et al. (2001)  Use of cover crops can provide N to the next crop, conserve N concentration through mineralization and erosion, and reduce nitrogen fertilizer requirements  Tonitto et al. (2005)  Nitrate leaching was reduced by 40% in legume- based systems

6. O BJECTIVE  Identify determinants of cover crop adoption.  Understand the change in the probability of adoption of cover crops by demographic, socio- economic, and agronomic characteristics.  Analyze how N management varies by farm relative to adoption or non-adoption of this technology.  Estimate the change in N use for those who adopted and didn’t adopt cover crops by demographic, socio-economic, and agronomic characteristics.

7. D ATA  The survey conducted in 2009 with collaborators from 6 universities (NSF funded Project)  7 states in MRB – IL, IN, IA, OH, MI, MN, and WI  2 ERS regions (Northern Crescent – IL, IN, IA, OH; and Heartland – MI, MN, and WI)  233 organic & 212 conventional farmers  Data for 2008 production year  Organic farmers only in this analysis

8. D ATA Variables  Demographic – ERS region, age, farm income, education, experience;  Socioeconomic - farm size, proportion of rented land, livestock, rented/not, cover crops, and information sources for N decision making – other farmers who adapted cover crops, other farmers relying on commercial N, organizations promoting cover crops, and organic fertilizer dealers;  Agronomic – all CRP payments, slope (more than 6%), no till used, rotation with winter cover crops, tile drainage,

9. M ETHODOLOGY Two-Stage model 6) Test of Endogeneity using Smith Blundell (1986) two-step procedure

10. R ESULTS Cover_cropCoefficientStandard ErrorMarginal Effect Op. age**0.0384860.018880.015301 Farm size (acres)0.0003670.0001480.000146 Total farm inc. (in $100,000) ** -0.129380.053405-0.05144 Op. education-0.070020.136631-0.02784 Years of experience**-0.13140.053542-0.05224 Expsq**0.002260.0010360.000899 Share of rented field-0.112760.114789-0.04483 Region (Northern Crescent ) -0.421670.267113-0.16671 Isds_cov*0.2328120.1311340.092562 Isds_org0.1144940.1160850.045521 Isds_ode* -0.210590.115494-0.08373 All conservative payments* 0.541050.3283590.209468 Slope-0.413990.355918-0.1637 _cons-0.661911.19023 Estimation Results from Probit Model (first stage) * - 10% significance, ** - 5% significance

11. R ESULTS NitrogenCoefficient Standard Error Marginal Effects Probability (%) Adopters Non- adopters Predicted values of cover crop** -168.50479.5384-0.45787-68.1958-96.3545 Op.’s education-24.173916.33009-0.06569-9.78348-13.8232 Farm size (acres)0.0107490.0088470.000030.004350.006147 Total farm inc. (in $100,000) * -6.162183.769868-0.01674-2.49391-3.52367 Livestock*56.1821433.731490.15357421.6031530.12598 No-till used248.0961177.85720.421492154.1898200.1675 Tile drainage-41.032932.15755-0.11175-16.2936-22.9094 Slope-44.122448.14568-0.12105-16.806-23.4059 Rented**-75.766732.14944-0.20624-28.9987-40.3042 Rotation with winter cover crops** 86.9425641.666030.22579438.0773753.90144 Isds_com-7.7655414.87927-0.0211-3.14282-4.44051 _cons168.922890.32249 Estimation Results from Tobit Model (second stage) * - 10% significance, ** - 5% significance

12. C ONCLUSION  Farmers’ age (+) and experience (-) had significants effect on cover crop adoption.  Conservation payments positively affected the adoption of cover crops.  Interacting with other farmers who were using cover crops increased the probability of adoption, but organic fertilizer dealers had negative effect on adoption.  If the field is rented then the nitrogen use decreased by 29 and for adopters and 40 pounds/acre non- adopters.  Cover crop adoption significantly decreased nitrogen use by farmers (68 and 96 pounds/acre for adopters and non-adopters respectively)

13. T HANK Y OU Questions/Comments ? ? ?