| >> Its purely anecdotal, but the vast majority of farmers I had the opportunity were not good farmers It is purely anecdotal. It greatly depends on the location and the generational age of the farmer the extent to which they are concerned with soil conservation. Cultural practices in farming tend to have wide adoption swings, (neighbors see what their neighbors are doing, etc) Entire counties will be using conventional methods and within a few seasons swap to lower disturbance methods. Conservation tillage practices—including no-till, strip-till, and mulch-till—vary widely across crops and regions[0]: • Conservation tillage was used on roughly 70 percent of soybean (2012), 65 percent of corn (2016), 67 percent of wheat (2017), and 40 percent of cotton (2015) acres. • The share of total conservation tillage that is no-till also varied from 67 percent (45 percent of total acreage) in wheat (2017) and 56 percent (40 percent of total acreage) in soybeans (2012) to 44 percent (18 percent of total acreage) in cotton (2015) and 42 percent (27 percent of total acreage) in corn (2016). • For individual crops, the rate of no-till varies by region. The likelihood of no-till corn, for example, is relatively high in the Northern Great Plains (50 percent of conservation tillage in corn, 34 percent of total corn acreage), Prairie Gateway (69 percent of conservation tillage, 49 percent of corn), and the South (the Eastern Uplands, Southern Seaboard, and Mississippi Portal combined) (67 percent of conservation tillage, 53 percent of corn). • Almost 50 percent of corn, soybean, wheat, and cotton acreage was in no-till or strip-till at some time over a 4-year period (including the survey and 3 previous years), but only about 20 percent of these acres were in no-till or strip-till all 4 years. I find your identification of 96-97% of farmers as short-term profiteers rude and borderline offensive. [0]: Tillage Intensity and Conservation Cropping in the United States, USDA 2018 |
It could be right. The smaller the farmer the less likely they are to realize how much the investment in better farming is worth it. The very large farmers have the numbers showing the investment is worth it, they control a lot of land, but are only a minority of farmers.
I'm still with you that > 90% is a bad estimate, but it isn't as bad as you make it out.