High oil prices fuel no-till trend

It's not by happenstance that the spike in fuel costs has coincided with the increasing trend of no-till farming methods across the country.

For the past five years, Justin Noggler, an Apache owner from Texas, has practiced no-till farming methods on the 11,000 acres he farms. During this time he has noticed major differences in his operation.

"We save several thousand gallons a year on fuel," Noggler said. "We also need fewer guys in the field had have noticed better crops."

Since oil prices continue to increase, farmers opt to adapt new methods to cut down on fuel costs, and many look to no-till as a viable option. No-till farming significantly cuts down on the number of trips a grower makes through the fields. More specifically, the United Soybean Board estimates in a soy checkoff-funded report, U.S. Soybean Production: A Comparison of Sustainable Production Systems for Conventional, Biotech, and Organic Soybeans, that farmers make an average of 1.8 fewer trips across the field when using no-till methods. Ultimately, a decrease in the number of trips across the field relates to a decrease in fuel usage. 

Another added benefit of decreasing fuel usage is a reduction in CO₂ emissions. In the United Soybean Board report, it was also approximated that the decrease in CO₂ emissions brought about by no-till farming in 2008 is equivalent to removing 125,750 cars each year. 

According to a Wall Street Journal article Plowing Through the Confusing Data on No-Till Farming, no-till farming was first introduced in the 1960s but did not become popular until the 1980s when fuel prices spiked.  

The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that soybeans, corn and other crops have increased the usage of no-till acreage by about 1.5 percent each year since 2000. Additionally, USDA statistics also reported in 2009 that almost half of all soybean acres were planted using no-till methods, and 35.5 percent of all of the country's cropland was farmed in no-till operations.  

When comparing costs associated with no-till farming versus conventional tilling, the three biggest factors are labor, fuel and herbicide. Generally, higher labor and fuel costs are associated with conventional tilling, and herbicide costs are higher with no-till methods. 

Beyond this, no-till farming is noted for protecting land against erosion, reducing nutrient depletion and decreasing runoff. According to the United Soybean Board report, conservation tillage is used on over 65 percent of U.S. soybean acres and results in the following achievements:
                -A 93 percent decrease in soil erosion
                -A 31 percent decrease in wind erosion
                -A 70 percent decrease in pesticide run-off
                -An 80 percent reduction in phosphorus contamination of surface waters
                -An annual soil moisture evaporation loss of reduction of 5.9 inches
                -Greater than 50 percent reductions in fuel use 

The rise in fuel prices combined with the increased environmental benefits make it easy to understand why no-till farming is a growing trend.