Increasing cover crops on Iowa farmland faces substantial challenges, despite the potential environmental and agronomic benefits, according to the Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll. A new Farm Poll report examines the attitudes of 1,360 Iowa farmers toward cover crops.
Iowa State has worked for many years with partner agencies and organizations to conduct research on and promote cover crops as a means to maintain and increase soil productivity, while reducing agriculture’s environmental impacts, said J. Gordon Arbuckle Jr., a sociologist with ISU Extension and Outreach and co-director of the annual poll.