Economic Sustainability and Riskiness of Cover Crop Adoption for Organic Production of Corn and Soybean in Northern Italy

Abstract

Techniques based on terminated cover crops are proposed in organic agriculture instead of traditional inter-row tillage for weed control in subsequent grain crops. We estimated the profitability and evaluated the riskiness of novel techniques compared to the traditional one. Two-year yield data from three on-farm trials for corn and one for soybean in northern Italy were combined with cost and revenue data to calculate and compare gross margin distributions of different techniques in each crop. The relative ranking of techniques and the associated riskiness was assessed by these distributions using the stochastic dominance principles. Corn yield response on cover crop-based treatments was very variable, making the adoption of cover crops overall less sustainable from an economic point of view than the traditional tillage-based technique. Further research in this sense was nonetheless warranted by observed exceptions. Hairy vetch cover crop tended to higher profitability and lower riskiness than crimson clover for subsequent corn cropping. Specific analyses suggested nil or slightly negative nitrogen fertilizer effects of legume residues on corn. Results indicated that profitability could be maintained with cover crops in soybean compared to the traditional practice. In particular, triticale tended to provide better economic performances than inter-row tillage.