The economic performance of soil health practices in potato production systems

Abstract Potato production typically entails both greater soil disturbance and higher profits than alternative crops in the regions in which they are grown. This article provides an analysis of economically relevant outcomes from soil health practice trials conducted in potato production systems in four locations across the continental United States from 2019 to 2022. We compare revenue and profit estimates over several soil health-related practices: rotation duration, chemical fumigation, mustard biofumigation, and application of organic amendments. We find that longer rotations are positively correlated with revenues and profits. This finding is robust across a range of tests and several regression specifications, although we do observe some variation across locations. While in our data, 3-year rotations consistently produced better economic outcomes than 2-year rotations, over time periods longer than the 4 years in this study, at least some of the gains associated with longer rotations will be offset by the implied decreased frequency of potato years. We did not find consistent evidence of differences in revenue or profits corresponding to chemical fumigation, mustard biofumigation, or the application of organic amendments.