Farmer Support
Soy Checkoff℠ Cost-Share Program Made Cover Crop Adoption a Practical Decision
Farmer Benefit
U.S. soybean farmers receive financial assistance to offset the cost of cover cropping, making the practice more accessible.
Checkoff Impacts
The Soy Checkoff helped establish and fund Farmers for Soil Health, a multi-commodity cost-share program that pays farmers to adopt cover crops.
For Jim Douglas, a fourth-generation farmer working the same ground his family has farmed since 1880, protecting the land is as much of a practical concern as it is a personal one.
When erosion started taking a visible toll on his fields, the cost was clear. Soil moving off the field means lost productivity, and on a farm with that kind of history, that is not a loss that gets made up easily.
The Soy Checkoff partnered with the Pork Checkoff and National Corn Growers Association to build Farmers for Soil Health, a cost-share program that makes cover crop adoption financially feasible.
The program provides $35 per acre per year on up to 2,000 acres, along with hands-on technical support for farmers. Available in 20 states, it’s designed to remove the barriers that keep farmers from making a change they already know makes sense.
$35
per acre per year in cost-share payments
Source: United Soybean Board
Up to 2,000
acres per farmer
Source: United Soybean Board
Douglas enrolled and planted cover crops. The erosion stopped. The change was visible and immediate, and the long-term outlook for the farm improved in a way that no amount of reactive patching could have produced.
The land his family has farmed for nearly 150 years is in better shape because a program made that first step affordable.
"When you can visibly see soil erosion, it's costly to the farm's long-term productivity… cover crops immediately stopped the erosion, and that is a visible change everyone can witness."
Farmer Support
Soy Checkoff℠ Cost-Share Program Made Cover Crop Adoption a Practical Decision
Farmer Benefit
U.S. soybean farmers receive financial assistance to offset the cost of cover cropping, making the practice more accessible.
Checkoff Impacts
The Soy Checkoff helped establish and fund Farmers for Soil Health, a multi-commodity cost-share program that pays farmers to adopt cover crops.
For Jim Douglas, a fourth-generation farmer working the same ground his family has farmed since 1880, protecting the land is as much of a practical concern as it is a personal one.
When erosion started taking a visible toll on his fields, the cost was clear. Soil moving off the field means lost productivity, and on a farm with that kind of history, that is not a loss that gets made up easily.
The Soy Checkoff partnered with the Pork Checkoff and National Corn Growers Association to build Farmers for Soil Health, a cost-share program that makes cover crop adoption financially feasible.
The program provides $35 per acre per year on up to 2,000 acres, along with hands-on technical support for farmers. Available in 20 states, it’s designed to remove the barriers that keep farmers from making a change they already know makes sense.
$35
per acre per year in cost-share payments
Source: United Soybean Board
Up to 2,000
acres per farmer
Source: United Soybean Board
Douglas enrolled and planted cover crops. The erosion stopped. The change was visible and immediate, and the long-term outlook for the farm improved in a way that no amount of reactive patching could have produced.
The land his family has farmed for nearly 150 years is in better shape because a program made that first step affordable.
"When you can visibly see soil erosion, it's costly to the farm's long-term productivity… cover crops immediately stopped the erosion, and that is a visible change everyone can witness."
$35
per acre per year in cost-share payments
Source: United Soybean Board
Up to 2,000
acres per farmer
Source: United Soybean Board
The Work Behind Farmer Success
Decades of focused, farmer-funded work delivered by the Soy Checkoff make farmer success stories possible.