ABSTRACT
Much of the current and previous research on the economics of soil conservation and soil health has focused on the farmer’s adoption decision as it relates to discrete soil health practices, such as no-till or reduced tillage, cover cropping or nutrient management (see USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (2017) for a list of practices considered a part of a soil health management system). This research is data-intensive, as it requires data that link on-farm soil health variables or changes in soil health or environmental benefits to changes in practices and environmental and economic outcomes. In addition, economists have often focused on evaluating one practice or programme at a time (or
one outcome variable, such as yield or profit) in order to more easily identify the effect or change they care about. However, this historical focus on individual practices in research and in public policy design means that there is less economic research that examines whether soil health practices are substitutes or complements for other soil health practices in terms of the production of benefits for agricultural production, or of environmental benefits.
