Economics

ISAP’s Cover Crop Incentives Directory

ISAP’s Cover Crop Incentives Directory provides an overview of cover crop incentive payment opportunities for farmers in Illinois. The directory includes both publicly and privately funded programs as well as a “Stacking Matrix” so farmers can easily determine if they may be eligible to stack payments from multiple programs. If there is information in the directory that needs to be updated, please contact ISAP at hello@ilsustainableag.org

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Conservation Effects Assessment Project: Publications

USDA’s Conservation Effects Assessment Project, CEAP, provides a suite of publications highlighting the effects of voluntary conservation across the nation’s working lands. The site compiles reports, articles fact sheets, and webinars on topics including crop lands, grazing lands, wetlands, wildlife, and watersheds.

“Cover Crops Economics” Report – SARE

The Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education’s “Cover Crop Economics: Opportunities to Improve Your Bottom Line in Row Crops” looks at the economics of cover crops in corn and soybean rotations to help farmers answer that big question, when do cover crops pay?

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Financing Resilient Agriculture

This report is for agricultural lenders and lending institutions, as well as others interested in understanding the climate risks faced by the agricultural lending sector and the role of agricultural lenders in financing resilient agriculture. This report provides a path forward for lenders to mitigate climate risks and finance resilient agriculture. Our hope is that it is useful to all those who are invested in the future of U.S. farms.

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CoverCrop Analyzer

The cover crop project seeks to provide farmers with a practical web-based decision support tool designed to help manage cover crops in their fields. The project makes use of existing research to demonstrate the potential for cover crops, as well as providing useful information for decision making and management of this practice. It will also seek to apply future research on cover crops as results are incorporated into updates and new iterations of the tool.

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Farm Analysis Solution Tools (FAST)

FAST (Farm Analysis Solution Tools) are a suite of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets designed to assist those in agriculture make better decisions via user-friendly computer programs. FAST aids users in performing financial analysis, assessing investment decisions, and evaluating the impacts of various management decisions.

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