An Economic and Environmental Tradeoff Analysis of Sustainable Agriculture Cropping Systems

This study used the results of a 60-year simulation based on data from the Sustainable Agricultural Demonstration site at the USDA, ARS Beltsville Agriculture Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland, to analyze tradeoffs between profitability and environmental stewardship. Six grain cropping systems included two no-tillage rotations with recommended fertilizer and herbicide inputs, two no-tillage rotations with winter annual cover crops and reduced herbicide and nitrogen inputs, and two reduced-tillage organic rotations. Economic analysis showed that highest gross margins were attained by a cover crop-based system with zero nitrogen inputs (CCZ). Risk analysis showed that the organic systems had lower profit variability across years and, therefore, would be most attractive to risk averse farmers. Both the cover crop-based systems and organic systems had low erosion risks and no risk of herbicide contamination so there were no profit versus erosion or herbicide tradeoffs amongst these systems. All systems had nitrogen runoff that exceeded threshold levels in at least two-thirds of the simulation years. In addition, systems that were lowest in nitrogen runoff were highest in phosphorus losses. This resulted in tradeoffs for risk neutral farmers between higher profitability along with higher nitrogen runoff for the CCZ system versus lower profitability along with lower nitrogen runoff for the organic systems. In contrast, for risk averse farmers, there would be a tradeoff between lower economic risk along with higher phosphorus loss in the organic systems versus higher economic risk along with lower phosphorus loss for the CCZ system. Thus, control of nutrient losses while maintaining profitable production levels represents a major challenge to the design of sustainable cropping systems.