A new study shows some farmers remain reluctant to adopt conservation tillage practices, but might change their minds with some financial incentives. Lyubov Kurkalova worked on the study at the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University in Ames. She says they studied how much money it would take to lure some growers into using new methods.Kurkalova says studies continue to show that conservation farming saves farmers money in the long run. But, she says that didn’t sway farmers. The prospect of getting better returns from conservation tillage wasn’t enough, farmers still needed some sort of premium. Kurkalova says farmers want to err on the side of caution when it comes to conservation tillage.Kurkalova says the amount of financial incentive needed to get a farmer to switch depended on a lot of things.Kurkalova says the research gives Ag officials something to think about when it comes to increasing the use of conservation measures in farming.
