Abstract
Federal conservation programs can target conservation assistance to the most vulnerable lands by stimulating the adoption of innovative technology including precision agriculture. Productivity and vulnerability vary within fields suggesting conservation programs could be targeted to marginal field regions potentially increasing the whole-field net revenue. Decision-support tools (DST) have been proposed to aid producers in determining where opportunities exist for profitably implementing precision agriculture in combination with conservation practices but whole farm quantitative assessments are limited. A user-friendly DST that delineates spatial eligibility of 35 Farm Bill conservation practices within farm fields and calculates the whole-field net revenue from conservation payments and crop production was modified. Three CRP practices—CP-22 Riparian Buffers, CP-33 Upland Bird Habitat Buffer, and CP-42 Pollinator Habitat Establishment were evaluated for three scenarios across 52 fields: maximum crop production, maximum conservation enrollment and economically targeted conservation enrollment. Net revenue was calculated by the DST from yield maps, commodity prices, and production costs. Whole-field net revenue was increased by an economically targeted scenario in 71% of the study fields. Mean whole-field net revenue was $316.50 ha−1 under maximum row crop production, $279.59 ha−1 for maximum conservation enrollment and $352.12 ha−1 for economically targeted conservation enrollment. Economically targeted conservation produced an average increase in net revenue of 24% relative to maximum production. These results confirm that effective conservation delivery is enhanced when landowner’s can visualize and quantify economic outcomes of targeting federal conservation programs to marginal areas within fields where program payments exceed net revenue from crop production.
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Acknowledgements
The generous help from Southern Ag Consulting, LLC, specifically Mitt Wardlaw for generously providing yield data and expertise in crop production systems of our study region was greatly appreciated. Funding for this research was provided by the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia in collaboration with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and the Forest and Wildlife Research Center.
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Meng, N., McConnell, M.D. & Wes Burger, L. Economically targeting conservation practices to optimize conservation and net revenue using precision agriculture tools. Precision Agric 23, 1375–1393 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-022-09890-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-022-09890-7