Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): yields

Farmers need technical support to balance crop yields with climate benefits

By Doria Gordon / Bio / Published: May 19, 2025

Cornfields on Ohio farm.

Cropland, which covers roughly 13% of global land surface, is integral to producing food, slowing warming and boosting resilience. Farmers find themselves in a difficult spot: they are compelled to deliver higher yields to feed a growing human population but with a lower carbon footprint.

This complexity is underscored in a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, which assessed how tillage, cover crops and crop residue affected both crop yields and greenhouse gas mitigation over time. This work is the first to examine the yield and mitigation impacts of common regenerative agriculture practices independently and collectively at a global scale looking out to 2050 and 2100.

Importantly, farmers can use these conservation practices to produce yields and mitigation, but they will need additional technical and financial assistance to do so. This is critical to maintaining livelihoods, food stability and supporting the climate.

Posted in Agriculture / Also tagged Climate, cropland, crops, farmers, technical assistance | Leave a comment

Sustainability and profitability go hand-in-hand, says Iowa corn farmer

By Suzy Friedman / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: July 30, 2015

Tim Richter, owner of Saratoga Partnership.

Farming is a tough business. With constantly changing crop prices, difficult to predict and increasingly extreme weather variations, and changing consumer demands, growers don’t have an easy time of it.

Like any business, profitability is the number one priority. And it should be – if you are not profitable, it’s very hard to stay in business.

All the growers I’ve worked with care deeply about their land. In a recent survey of a group of Midwestern farmers, “land stewardship” ranked as their top value. And sustainability is in a farmers’ best interest since healthy lands plays a huge role in whether farms will be around – and productive – for the next generation. But making agriculture truly sustainable will require investment from farmers.

Here’s the good news: sustainability and profitability can go hand-in-hand. Efficiencies like fertilizer optimization can result in cost savings. And with those savings, growers can invest in new technologies and cover crops, which can help make farms more resilient and increase yields, generating long term economic gain.

I asked Tim Richter, owner of a swine and corn farm operation spanning 9,000 acres in northern Iowa and Missouri, to tell me his profitability and sustainability story. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture, ecosystems, Supply Chain / Also tagged agronomy, business, commodity crops, corn, cover crops, environment, farm, fertilizer optimization, G.I. bill, growers, iowa, iowa state, land stewardship, midwestern farmers, missouri, runoff, saratoga partnership, soil, soil conservation, sustainability, sustainable, swine, the sustainability consortium, Tim Richter | Comments are closed

How cover crops can help growers beat droughts and floods

By Maggie Monast / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: July 22, 2015

Cover crops can include grasses like cereal rye.

Corn is trying to fight this summer’s extreme weather, and unfortunately, the weather is winning.

There are serious floods in the Midwest, devastating droughts in California, and brutal heat waves along the eastern seaboard. Ohio for example had a record June rainfall of 11 inches, which stunted corn roots and prevented many growers from planting any corn crops. In Northwest Ohio alone, 100,000 acres were left unplanted. At the same time, places in my home state of North Carolina experienced a June heat wave during the critical corn pollination period, significantly damaging corn yields.

These extreme weather events leave many farmers searching for ways to make the best of a challenging growing season. Although June’s weather was the opposite in Ohio and North Carolina, cover crops offer a proven solution to deal with both conditions. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture, ecosystems, Water / Also tagged agriculture, California agriculture, California drought, cash crop, climate change, conservation, Conservation Technology Information Center, corn, cover crop, crops, drought, farm, farmer, flood, food, nitrogen, North Carolina, nutrient, Ohio, pollination, soil, Soil Health Partnership, soy, soybean, soybeans, SUSTAIN, sustainable, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, sustainable grain, United Suppliers MB Gro Program, water use | Comments are closed