Predictive Soil Health Economic Calculator

While soil health practices such as cover crops, no-till, and nutrient management are associated with improvements to water quality, drought resilience, and soil organic matter, some farmers may be reluctant to adopt new practices due to the uncertainty of potential costs of implementing a practice.

To address that challenge, AFT, in partnership with USDA NRCS, is developing a Predictive Soil Health Economic Calculator (P-SHEC) Tool to use with row crop farmers interested in adopting soil health practices. P-SHEC is a user-friendly online tool that estimates the potential long-term costs and benefits of adopting certain soil health practices, aiming to provide users with better-informed decision-making support.

Who will benefit from using the P-SHEC tool?

Farmers, ag advisors, and conservation planners in 41 states and 1,962 counties across the contiguous US (see orange counties in the map above) who are interested in exploring potential economic impacts of adopting various soil health practices.

• The P-SHEC tool includes the following crops: barley, corn, cotton, tobacco, sorghum, oat, peanut, sugar beet, soybean, and/or wheat (see maps below for the crops that can be analyzed in specific counties)

• The P-SHEC tool includes the following soil health practices: no-till, reduced till, cover crops, nutrient management (specifically, changes in nitrogen application rate)

What can you do with the P-SHEC tool?

• Estimate future costs and benefits associated with soil health practice adoption for row crop farmers who have not yet adopted soil health practices

• Predict county-specific impacts of soil health practices on soil organic matter and yield

• Predict the Net Present Value of the effects of implementing soil health practices over 10 years

• Analyze the impact of soil health practices under drought scenarios

What questions can you answer with the P-SHEC tool?

• How will soil health practices impact crop productivity and farm profitability?

• What are the costs associated with implementing soil health practices?

• Can soil health practices help reduce the effects of drought on yield?

• What are the annual (Year 1) and long-term economic changes (cumulative 10-year) of adopting soil health practices?

Background

AFT uses innovative research techniques to estimate the relationship between increasing soil organic matter in response to soil health practice adoption and how that affects crop yield. Using a combination of crop yield, soil, and weather data, we created a machine-learning model to predict, at the county level, for certain states, the estimated change in yield from ten years of soil health practice adoption. This research is combined with cost data to create the foundation for the web-based P-SHEC tool.

Research, design, and pilot-testing of the tool have been done in collaboration with the USDA NRCS Soil Health Division and Agricultural Economists.

Partner with Us

We welcome hearing your research questions! Reach out to us with ideas and partnership opportunities.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on ways to improve and expand this tool to fit your needs. Some ideas for tool expansion and application include:

• Improve spatial resolution and site-specific estimations: integrate sub-county crop yield data from process-based and satellite-based models into P-SHEC to generate field-level profitability maps and adoption guidance.  

• Incorporate additional co-benefits of soil health practices: quantify the cost-saving benefits of ecological benefits such as reduced fertilizer and water usage, providing a fuller cost-benefit picture on long-term soil health investments. 

• Broaden yield resistance measures: extend yield resistance estimates to excessive rainfall and extreme temperature to provide insights on risk management that resonate with farmers and insurers. 

• Use P-SHEC data and model to analyze state-level policy scenarios to inform policy decisions by estimating the costs and benefits of incentivizing the adoption of soil health practices across row crop counties with high levels of cost-effectiveness.

Contact Us

If you have questions about or suggestions for the P-SHEC Tool, or are interested in collaborating, please contact AFT’s Water Initiative director, Dr. Michelle Perez, at mperez@farmland.org.