Soil Health Practices Offer a Profitable Alternative
March 30, 2026 In this challenged farm economy, many producers are giving soil health practices a closer look as a measure to reduce input costs and to possibly increase profitability. But for longtime cotton farmer Sledge Taylor of Como, MS, incorporating no-till practices and cover crops has been standard operating procedure for decades.
“I planted some cover crops and did some no-till work back in the 80s,” Taylor says. “Back then, it was about best conservation practices, mainly to stop erosion.”
Today Taylor’s entire operation is in no-till production, and about 50 percent of his acres utilize cover crops. He says somewhere along the way, he began to realize the other benefits of these practices — including nutrient preservation and, importantly, rain infiltration on his dryland acreage comprised of sandy loam soil.
While common soil health tactics are not quick fixes, they can impact a farm’s bottom line in myriad ways.
“The biggest benefit is the reduced cost,” says Archie Flanders, an agricultural economist with the Soil Health Institute. Flanders has been tasked with interviewing over 200 farmers who have switched into soil health-focused practices and has made note of the positive results these producers report.
“This comes about in several ways,” Flanders says. “They have potentially reduced fertilizer costs and reduced pesticide costs. With no-till and cover crops, you can get weed suppression, and your weed management program would allow you to reduce herbicides.
“When we start reducing pesticides, we start reducing trips across the field with the sprayer, or custom applications,” Flanders says, making note of fuel savings. Separately, Taylor took stock of the equipment preservation benefits that stem from reducing tillage trips across the fields.
Statistics gathered by the Soil Health Institute support the idea that these practices can have a real economic impact on cotton farms across the Belt.
In Arkansas, for example, the Institute tracked five cotton producers who together switched a significant amount of their acreage into no-till or reduced-tillage systems, as well as into cover cropping systems. Those farmers, according to the Institute, reported savings on average of $85/acre on their cotton production — all while witnessing no reduction in yields.
Similarly, five producers in North Carolina tracked production costs while switching acreage into soil health practices. “It costs an average of $65/acre less to grow cotton using a soil health management system,” according to a Soil Health Institute summary report on these five cotton production operations. Additionally, three of these five producers reported increased yield at an average of 120 pounds/acre after incorporating soil health tactics.
It’s important to note that the producers who were tracked by the Soil Health Institute did not make wholesale changes across their entire operations, respectively. Instead, they considered the cost benefit analysis on each individual acre and ultimately decided to shift a percentage of their land into new production practices, as dictated by what their analysis suggested.
“Adopting soil health practices is not something that would require a farmer to completely overhaul their production systems,” says Flanders. “It’s about making marginal changes.”
There’s no denying that current market conditions will have many producers considering new practices to try and improve their profitability. But Flanders insists that adopting soil health tactics will offer benefits no matter the condition of the cotton market.
“With commodity prices, just as sure as they go up, they will one day go down. Just as sure as night will turn to day, they are down right now, but they will one day go up,” says Flanders. “By contrast, production input prices are always trending upward. So, farmers are going to need to find ways to reduce their production expenses.”
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