A thorny question in corn country
Tuesday, Jul 22, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
As the deadline approaches for Congress to renew the U.S. Farm Bill, agricultural experts and farmers are calling on legislators to prioritize protecting topsoil in the Midwest and throughout the country, especially as the federal government is withdrawing from conservation initiatives.
Topsoil is eroding, on average, at a rate of three-quarters of an inch per year in the Midwest, a rate double what the U.S. Department of Agriculture considers sustainable, according to a 2022 study published in the journal Earth’s Future. The study also concluded more than 57 billion metric tons of topsoil have eroded in the Midwest over the last 160 years. […]
“For decades, we have rightly focused on protecting our most vulnerable soils,” said Garrett Hawkins, president of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, in a statement. “However, IL Corn encourages decision makers to think differently, to consider how programs can better protect our most productive soils.” […]
“If we fail to deliver effective programs, technical assistance, and meaningful funding to our farmers, soil health and soil erosion will continue to be a challenge.” [Hawkins said]
“What they’ve found over the last five years of data is that the most profitable fields in Illinois are doing no tillage with soybeans and one pass or less with corn,” [Emily Hansen, a commercial agricultural educator with University of Illinois Extension] said.
This is probably going to be an unpopular question in corn country, but why do we have to pay cash money to business owners (farmers) in order to save their own land when doing that on their own is actually more profitable?
* I reached out to the Illinois Corn Growers Association, but did not hear back. I also reached out to the Illinois Environmental Council. Its response…
You raise a fair question, and we agree that it might be time to take a hard look at federal farm incentives and regulations, because if we’re at all serious about soil and water conservation, we need to be honest about the lack of progress we’re making in our current approach. In lieu of strong federal soil and water conservation regulations, which we would support, it may be time to move beyond incentivizing what should be the bare minimum, like no-till, and shift our resources toward incentivizing a food system built on regenerative, climate-smart practices that benefit all taxpayers.
With Congress and our state legislature failing to fund sustainable agriculture at the levels they should, investment dollars should be maximized to support helping farmers implement practices like cover crops, which might require a higher startup investment, but that pay dividends for all of us in the long run.
Thoughts?
- ArchPundit - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:00 pm:
Honestly thought this was going to be a sugar in coke.
- cal skinner - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:04 pm:
Conservation practices were being taught during the Great Depression, if my memory of junior high school history is still good.
Hard to figure out any farmer who doesn’t know what best practices are.
- clec dcn - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:09 pm:
We have best soil in the world for growing and yes we need to be concerned. Bottom line though is I don’t think regulation and government oversea is going to be the answer. I am not a farmer but respect the great work they do. Probably requires many brains from various disciplines. Maybe less government help other than get the brains together.
- Downstate - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:17 pm:
Capitalism is a great thing. Government involvement only adds to the complexity and cost.
When fuel prices rose, many farmers switched to no-till planting, which if it produced lower yields, was more than made up by fuel savings.
Of course it reduced soil erosion, as well.
Farmers have a huge incentive to protect their top soil. I’m not sure the government needs to be more involved.
It’s a little like the government mandating oil changes on cars. Most owners, due to the investment already have the incentive to preserve that resource.
- Jack in Chatham - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:27 pm:
The Crop Budgets issued by the University of Illinois that are used by farmers and bankers in financial planning have no Expense line for the Cost of Soil Erosion. Uncertain farmers should be exempt from Motor Fuel tax and Retail Sales taxes on machinery.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:28 pm:
===Uncertain farmers should be exempt from===
Business inputs are usually exempt.
- Leo from Dolton - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:30 pm:
I’m not sure I care what the IL Environmental Council thinks about agricultural land in Illinois. I would have preferred to hear from the Corn growers, as one would think they are more in tune with the question. They missed a chance to persuade me on the topic.
- Google Is Your Friend - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:32 pm:
- Downstate - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:17 pm:
One Dust Bowl wasn’t enough for you?
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:39 pm:
===I would have preferred to hear from the Corn growers===
Same, which, as you note, is why I asked them.
- Excitable Boy - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:41 pm:
- why do we have to pay cash money to business owners (farmers) in order to save their own land when doing that on their own is actually more profitable? -
It’s unreal this has to even be asked. And given the dangers like the dust storm on I-55, I would go a step farther and regulate excessive tillage.
- TheInvisibleMan - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:41 pm:
–
why do we have to pay cash money to business owners (farmers) in order to save their own land when doing that on their own is actually more profitable
–
Because farmers like any other capitalist today, will prioritize certainty in getting money today, over maybe saving some money tomorrow or in a half a decade. It’s the unspoken reality of our current society.
There’s often a disconnect between the way people behave in reality, and the way people try to romanticize whatever profession is being discussed. The current incentives seem to be based on what policy makers wish would be done, and not the unintended consequences of what is actually being done.
If we go really deep in the weeds(no pun intended) then the farmers who already know they don’t have a family member to take over the farm when they depart, are going to chase the short term benefits over anything else. They don’t care a bit what the condition of the field will be in 30 more years because they won’t be around to deal with it. So why bother doing anything sustainable? Larger corporate farms will simply take the route with the largest immediate profit margin. Sustainability will be an accidental outcome of that motivation, if it happens at all.
Example of romanticizing;
“Farmers have a huge incentive to protect their top soil.”
Example of reality;
“Topsoil is eroding, on average, at a rate of three-quarters of an inch per year in the Midwest, a rate double what the U.S. Department of Agriculture considers sustainable”
Are all farmers behaving like this? No. Are most farmers, yes.
- Norseman - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:52 pm:
Seems like this involves some research on best practices and the effect of climate change. Sorry, research is not a priority in MAGA America and mitigating climate change is a mortal sin according to the fossil fuels funded MAGA GOP.
- To Be Clear - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:55 pm:
-why I asked them.-
They aren’t going to respond. IL Corn has gotten to the point of blaming the farmer for farming - talking about CI scores and all this nonsense when it’s really about ethenol and storing carbon underground for them.
- Who else - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 12:57 pm:
==Capitalism is a great thing. Government involvement only adds to the complexity and cost.==
That’s a fine thing to say, and it is even true. It’s just that there are other things that are also true at the same time. I totally agree that farmers themselves have a huge incentive to protect their top soil, and that they do and would do it on their own. But with climate change, for example, I don’t know how farms continue to exist without government involvement. You can’t force insurers to cover farm land without the government stepping in to make that a sustainable and profitable thing for them to do. So state government did.
But it does seem like government is consistently pulling the wrong levers in this and other policy spaces, and is incentivizing behavior that does not need to be/should not be incentivized.
The purge, as I have come to think of what’s happening on the federal level, is providing liberals with ample opportunities to examine how the “helpful” policies of the past need to not just be revised but totally scrapped in some cases to look at the outcomes people actually want. “Because it’s how it’s always been done” is not a good enough reason. And with limited state resources made even more limited by federal divestment, we’re all going to need to be more clear-eyed about what we’re actually trying to do here. Sometimes that’s going to mean doing something that looks like rolling back environmental protections but is actually just admitting that it turns out the protection wasn’t protecting anything.
- Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:06 pm:
The InvisibleMan hits the nail on the head. Short term gains rule. I live in the middle of corn & soy fields. Over the past 25 years, I have seen wind breaks removed and green drainage ways plowed and planted. If anything, conservation practices are on the decline. Chasing next falls profits overrides all other concerns.
- ArchPundit - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:10 pm:
More than a few farmers tend to use the way they learned to do things as the best way to do it regardless of how much research they are shown. In a functioning farm economy, that would mean some do better and the market sorts it out, but land is now being hoarded by corporations and foreign investors and that falls down. It also often changes the long term calculations of what makes the most.
The farm economy has changed and the incentives are often out of whack with long term conservation and investment in land.
===Business inputs are usually exempt.
AFAIK farmers are still exempt on gas taxes for farm equipment and can deduct taxes later if they aren’t buying it dyed.
=====I would have preferred to hear from the Corn growers===
Who do you consider the corn growers? The owners or the guys they hire to do the work? Those are often overlapping groups, but more and more the owners are not the farmers.
- Notorious JMB - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:12 pm:
Part of the no till/1pass question I think depends on the type of soil. You can get away with a lot more on black dirt than you can clay and white dirt. Clay and white get very hard putting more stress on plants resulting in lower population and lower yields. And with no till you usually use more chemicals to kill out the weeds competing with the crop for nutrients. Once the crop is able to fill out the rows and shade the ground weeds are less of a problem.
The second I think comes down to equipment. The tillage implements that have come out in the past 10 years or so are much more efficient (and much larger) than the tillage equipment manufactured 30 years ago (of which there is still a lot of in use). With the newer (and significantly more expensive equipment) you can make 1 pass and a field will look good and be level, with the older equipment it might take a couple passes with a disc to break the soil up and then another pass with a field cultivator to level the ground out (preventing standing water).
- Jack in Chatham - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:18 pm:
Business inputs are usually tax deductible but not exempt. We should also consider wholesale taxes on fungicides, herbicides and pesticides to help fund the State Environmental Protection Agency.
- Cool Papa Bell - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:34 pm:
Corn growers and other farm groups love to say we need a carrot and not stick approach to regulations at the farm gate.
That usually means when adding or increasing regulations or requirements lets not require it, lets make it optional - but also can we tag a cash incentive to do it?
That approach has made the Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy largely ineffective.
A cash payment to take on a conservation practice is also going to be prefered by the ag lobby, because they will often say - if your asking us to possibly give back yield (profit) to save the environment then you need to compensate for the yield drag due to the change in practice.
A fairly ridiculous thing to say anymore is “Farmers - the original conservationist”, it’s simply not true. Too much of modern day farming is over reliant on applying large amounts of synthetic fertilizer, chemical herbicides, destructive tillage and promoting products and programs that are counter to an environmental message.
Now lets talk about “carbon programs” and tax credits for the producer to the manufacturer.
- jimbo - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:41 pm:
==Farmers have a huge incentive to protect their top soil. I’m not sure the government needs to be more involved. ==
Farmers know the Feds will always bail them out no matter what they do or don’t do.
- Full Time Farmer - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:44 pm:
At the end of the day farming would be better if the goverment was not involved at all!! We try to do what is best for the enviroment, but we are also running business therefore we have to make a profit to live.
I would really take lightly what any Enviromental group has to say, as well as the University of Illinois. It is always important to see who is funding the study where the data comes from.
Contrary to popular belief, there are very few corporate farms in Illinois. However there are many larger Family managed farming operations.
If you do want to sign up for a conservation program, it is about an 8 month process, takes 3 trees worth of goverment papers, and 50 hoops to jump through. Then it is hard to get the finished project inspected because there are not enough USDA employees to inspect it!
We have the best topsoil in the world right here, it is the biggest asset a farmer has, so regardless of till or no till we are all trying to keep it in placeas best we can.
- uptown progressive - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:46 pm:
As the saying goes: “You’ve stopped preaching and gone to meddling”
- Tequila Mockingbird - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:50 pm:
I am old enough to remember the family farm when a farmer could make a living on less than 400 acres and grew a variety of crops and meat animals.
Now we have 4000+ acre farms (corporate or foreign owned) growing nothing but corn/beans only and almost none is consumed by humans. 85% of the corn in my area goes right to the (subsidized) ethanol plant.
Who grows our food? Mexico, South America, west coast? Processed food? Unhealthy but can be made anywhere.
I have farmland and some is enrolled in conservation programs but the government regs and hoops make it more of a nuisance. They pay me a little to manage my highly erodable and wildlife land but it’s not much and they require a lot.
- Chambanalyst - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:51 pm:
Why would you spend your own money to take care of the soil when you could spend the government’s? I wonder if there is a perception that if you say you do not need it, getting it restarted if and when you DO need, would be very difficult to accomplish.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 1:58 pm:
===there are very few corporate farms in Illinois===
Less than a fourth of Illinois farmland is owned by the farmer who works the land, according to data from the Illinois Farm Business Farm Management, a nonprofit association that helps farmers make management decisions. The rest is leased to farmers by individuals, family trusts and, increasingly, businesses. […]
The Tribune analyzed over 3.7 million acres of farmland in 10 counties with the most fertile soils, highest cash rents in 2024 and available historical data. It found that over 1 in 5 acres are owned by business entities — organizations with LLC, Inc, LTD, Co., Corp, LP and LLP tags. This is an almost 170% increase since 2005. In the same 20-year window, farmland owned by businesses with out-of-state mailing addresses increased by nearly 250%.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/06/01/illinois-farming-ownership-climate-change/
- WK - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 2:05 pm:
=A fairly ridiculous thing to say anymore=
The biggest problem is that the answers aren’t that easy.
NLRS has largely been ineffective because many of the beloved soil conservation practices, such as no-till, build soil structure (a good thing) but that actually makes it easier for fertilizers to leach out. Switching from synthetic fertilizers back to manure? Even more issues with phosphates in the rivers and gulfs.
Organic farming? Gets rid of all those awful synthetic chemicals, but the part they don’t tell you is that no one is doing more tillage than organic farmers.
It also doesn’t help that defunding conservation has become bipartisan, because the environmental groups seem to only care about building wind and solar farms. How much did Illinois cut from the soil and water conservation districts under Pritzker?
- ArchPundit - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 2:14 pm:
==farmland owned by businesses with out-of-state mailing addresses increased by nearly 250%.
It’s having a significant impact on those who are medium size farmers and need to add land to make it profitable. It’s very difficult to buy or lease land b/c of the competition from companies, often not local, and foreign investors. It’s not your neighbor who outbids you, it’s a corporation or investment group (kinda the same).
My sense is the trends are accelerating and with that will be people owning and controlling the land with less concern over the long term effects of conservation.
- Downstate - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 2:25 pm:
Two great points are highlighted in the comments.
1. Farms are increasingly owned by business entities, rather than actual farmers.
2. Farmers can’t survive with just a 400 acre farm.
The efficiencies of farming, like so many industries, are impacting the economics of farming. Talking with farmers, it’s fascinating to hear about how larger equipment reduces, dramatically, the number of people, the time to plant and harvest, etc. Even the prospect of making hale bales has been transformed so that far fewer people are needed.
As importantly, bigger equipment can handle more acreage. So the farmer that owns 1,000 acres can now handle 4,000 acres relatively easily. They can’t easily buy it, but they can rent it from 3rd generation owners who no longer have the inclination nor financial capacity to keep up with the financial constraints. Similarly, the fast planting and harvest times mean that many farmers can actually hold full time jobs, while still farming 1,000 plus acres.
Data on specific acreage, including productivity, are part of a national database. Farmers that think they are going to maximize profits with just a short term view, will realize that the productivity of the ground will quickly erode. And that opens up a domino effect regarding their ability to get the financing to remain in business.
There are 15-20% of farmers that are facing financial challenges this year due to successive years of low grain prices. We’ve gone through this cycle before, in the 80’s and 90’s.
We won’t have another dust bowl, but we will have a group of farmers who will have to face hard facts regarding their chosen profession.
- Don't Bloc Me In - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 2:27 pm:
My hot take: the best soil sometimes makes the most apathetic farmers. Hoping to comment with more details later.
- Dotnonymous x - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 2:34 pm:
- Capitalism is a great thing. -
For who?
- very old soilT - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 2:49 pm:
The numbers cited for soil erosion are ridiculous. An acre-furrow slice of soil weighs 1000 tons. The average soil loss in Illinois is less than 5 tons per acre per year. Plow depth is considered to be 6 or 7 inches. You cn not see 5 tons of soils loss.
- TheInvisibleMan - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 3:15 pm:
–
The numbers cited for soil erosion are ridiculous.
–
There was a day earlier this year, when I could *taste and feel* the soil in my mouth from central Illinois. It also blocked out the sun for the better part of 2 hours.
The frequency in which this is happening is increasing.
I don’t live in Central Illinois.
- Cool Papa Bell - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 3:19 pm:
=NLRS has largely been ineffective=
It’s been ineffective because there is no actual regulation on the amount of nitrogen that can be applied on a field or limit of other nutrients that can be applied.
If you’re looking for effective - its the way the Chesapeake Bay Watershed was protected.
And that regulation goes for point and non-point sources.
This trickles down to the topic at hand. To stay on point. You don’t have to )(shouldn’t have too) pay anyone to save a resource to protect the environment. I’m a little young for the days of leaded gas - but did we pay automakers to produce engines that didn’t run on leaded gas? Or did we just mandate that poison away?
- SAP - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 3:26 pm:
Illinois gives very favorable property tax assessment to farmland. Maybe that tax treatment should be earned.
- WK - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 3:41 pm:
=Or did we just mandate that poison away?=
I’m not sure the intestinal fortitude exists in policy-making circles to either swallow the amount of lost dollars from the state’s economy due to the reduction in yields from lower N levels, nor to watch those regs follow the same course as most government ag intervention, which would be to create policies easier swallowed by the big/corporate guys that further put more small operators out of business.
- Downstate - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 3:41 pm:
“Capitalism is a great thing. - For who?”
When the Berlin Wall fell, which side did people run to?
- old guy - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 4:20 pm:
As my farmer father used to say, “Farmers are not good at politics. They say ‘get the government off my back…where is my support check.” Need both carrot and stick. The indigenous Americans knew that no one can own the land, it belongs to everyone and should be protect by everyone.
- Cool Papa Bell - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 5:01 pm:
=swallow the amount of lost dollars from the state’s economy due to the reduction in yields from lower N levels=
Yet the MRTN calculator is a real thing and consistently shows that farmers need far less nitrogen than they apply. So its not really about yield loss - its about nitrogen loss from an over applied input.
Heck last week I heard from a farmer who’s Y-dropping N on soybeans. A nitrogen fixing plant. But we need all that N? Right.
- Don't Bloc Me In - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 5:48 pm:
I’d like to know where the Trib got their soil erosion figures. 3/4 inch per year? One ton of soil spread out over one acre is about equal to the thickness of a piece of paper. The worst erosion I ever measured was 30 tons per acre, which is still not 3/4 inch.
The “T” value for soils was established many years ago, and has been updated. T is the amount of sheet and rill erosion per year a soil can tolerate, and remain productive. Most soils in Illinois have a T of 3-5 tons per acre. There have been 40 years of intense education for farmers about this. Some have learned and do indeed care. Others won’t improve no matter how many incentives are offered. One program that has worked is the Conservation Reserve Program, which has been popular, but is set to be eliminated by Project 2025.
I think the idea of offering incentives has had a minor effect. What I was hoping to see initiated was the idea of Sen. Harkin from Iowa about 25 years ago. He wanted to see a Farm Bill program that gave payments to farmers only AFTER they implemented conservation practices. Sadly, we never saw it implemented.
The real push to reduce soil erosion and protect wetlands began with the 1985 Farm Bill. There were penalties for those who failed to implement conservation on Highly Erodible Land and for those who broke out wetlands. The whining from the ag sector about that has never stopped. I’m pretty sure the current administration in DC will wipe out what’s left of our agricultural conservation programs.
- Ivesdale - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 6:53 pm:
Pritzker sure doesn’t care about erosion. He cut $4 million from the 2025 Soil & Water Conservation
Districts budget and $1 million from the 2026 budget. These funds are for cover crops and other conservation projects.
- Dirty Red - Tuesday, Jul 22, 25 @ 9:28 pm:
= What they’ve found over the last five years of data is that the most profitable fields in Illinois are doing no tillage with soybeans and one pass or less with corn. =
Which is amazing because the family-owned farmers around us 20 years ago were saying the same thing. Tilling makes little business sense, let alone better environmental policy. Anyone still tilling at this point is a grade above stubborn.