Sowing and Harvesting Measures to Cope with Challenges of Cover Crops Experienced by Finnish Farmers

Abstract

Farmers may promote the cultivation of under-sown cover crops (CCs) in various ways without jeopardizing the yield of a cash crop. With this survey, we aimed to understand how Finnish farmers manage possible challenges with under-sown CCs. A farmer survey was carried out in 2021. We invited 6493 farmers who had selected CCs as a registered measure to answer a questionnaire with 20 statements (a Likert scale), and 1130 responded (17.4%). A Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel test was used to measure the strength of the association between 11 farm/farmer characteristics of the respondents and 20 statements. Responses indicated that farmers often took under-sown CCs into account during the growing season. Sowing was considered an especially critical measure and the CC seeding rate was often assessed with a test run before sowing. Thirty-nine per cent of the respondents had made investments, most often to facilitate sowing. The farmers usually adjusted the fertilizer rate only according to the cash crop. Early harvesting of a cash crop was considered important by 58% of farmers to ensure that the CCs do not hamper the harvest. Farmers harvested cash crops as soon as they matured and were harvestable, though they had mixed views on whether CCs impacted the quality of the cash crop. Subsidized, investing farmers were likely to be oriented towards the benefits from the ecosystem services provided by CCs. Their experiences should be shared among the farming community to support the large-scale implementation of CCs.

Finnish Farmers Feel They Have Succeeded in Adopting Cover Crops but Need Down-to-Earth Support from Research

“…In addition to 13 statements under the title "Your success with CCs?" analyzed in this paper, the survey included other main themes with 51 statements, all dealing with CCs [23,32,36,37]. The farmers had five answer choices for each of the 13 statements: 1 = fully disagree, 2 = agree, 3 = neither disagree nor agree, 4 = agree, and 5 = fully agree.…”

“…altissima), were assembled from the registry of the FFA and grouped as <25%, 25-50%, and ≥50% for cereals, grasslands and other crops, and as 0%, <10%, and ≥10% for special crops (lower cultivation areas). In addition to the land use for cash crops, the number of CCs (1-5, 5-10, and >10) that a farmer had cultivation experience with was used as background data [32]. Furthermore, the responding farmers were asked to select species they had used as CCs and to indicate the degree of experience with each species: 1 = none, 2 = very little, 3 = somewhat, 4 = a lot, and 5 = very much.…”

“…Farmers seemed to do better with CCs in the case that their land use was not cerealdominated (Figure 7), which may be attributable to limited experience in cultivating special, diversifying crops [32]. On the other hand, CCs were used especially on cereal farms with the likely aim of restoring the soil structure and condition [23].…”

“…The primary target is to support the expansion of the field area allocated for CCs and the provision of services provided by CCs for the ecosystem and simultaneously reduce the risk that the economic costs may slow down adoption [31]. Thereby, the agricultural payment can be considered as a security measure for a farmer to cover costs when purchasing CC seeds, making changes to crop protection and management, and investing in machinery to facilitate the successful sowing and establishment of CCs [32]. Such agricultural payments are often crucial at the early stages of a green transition to push operators to become familiar with novel practices, learn by doing, and find the best practices that promote success to avoid early failure.…”