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Benchmarking cover crop financial performance

Vincent Gauthier and Josh Tjosaas

Summary

Cover crops are making headlines in agriculture, but how do we ensure producers have the information they need to adopt cover crops profitably? Farmers are being pressed by consumers, food companies, and carbon credit markets to adopt cover crops for their soil health and carbon benefits. Educating farmers about the financial impacts of adopting cover crops is pivotal to ensure they adopt cover crops sustainably for the long-term.

In 2021, MN State’s Farm Business Management program, Environmental Defense Fund, the Center for Farm Financial Management and other partners established cover crop financial benchmarking into the largest publicly available farm financial database in the country — FINBIN. The partners created a new cover crop financial data gathering process, trained Farm Business Management educators and provided scholarships for participating producers to establish robust financial information on cover crops producers can rely on. The project will provide benchmarking services, annual cover crop financial reports, and educational programming to help producers adopt cover crops profitably.

In this session, we will share the positive impacts financial benchmarking can have in supporting producers to adopt cover crops profitably. Attendees will learn:
• why communicating the financial impacts of cover crops is important to risk management education;
• how educators, lenders, and producers can utilize our cover crop financial benchmarking tools and resources;
• how financial benchmarking can be integrated into cover crop projects in your state.

Details

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