Soil Carbon Sequestration Strategies with Alternative Tillage and Nitrogen Sources under Risk

Abstract

This study examines the economic potential of using either no-tillage or conventional tillage with either commercial nitrogen or cattle manure to sequester soil in continuous corn production. This research uses stochastic efficiency with respect to a function to determine the preferred production systems under various risk preferences and utility-weighted certainty equivalent risk premiums to determine the carbon credit values needed to motivate adoption of systems, which sequester higher levels of carbon. The results indicate that no-tillage and cattle manure increase carbon sequestration. Carbon credits or government program incentives are not required to entice risk-averse managers to use no-tillage, but are required to encourage manure use as a means of sequestering additional carbon even at historically high nitrogen prices. New environmental rules for confined animal feeding operations may increase the demand for land to apply manure as a primary nutrient source and participation in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Security Program, and a carbon credit market to obtain payments to offset some or all of the costs of manure application.