Beyond adoption: The persistence of conservation and climate-smart agricultural practices in the United States

Achieving sustainability goals requires that humans change their behavior not just once but persistently. Yet despite decades of research on the adoption of conservation and climate-smart agricultural practices, little is known about the extent to which these practices persist over time. One key reason is the lack of longitudinal, field-level data. Using ground-verified, longitudinal data on cover cropping across thousands of farm parcels in Indiana (USA), we find that persistence is low and contrasts sharply with the predictions made by Indiana conservation experts. We also find low persistence in a new national dataset of self-reported cover cropping by farm operators. The potential for low behavioral persistence in sustainable agricultural practices raises essential questions about the design of conservation programs and the modeling and valuation of ecosystem services.

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Publication Details

Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2025-10-21
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2518373122
Primary Topic
Land Use and Ecosystem Services
Type
article
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article

Beyond adoption: The persistence of conservation and climate-smart agricultural practices in the United States

Kent D. Messer, Hannah Correia, Paul J. Ferraro, Maria Bowman et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Land Use and Ecosystem Services
article

Beyond adoption: The persistence of conservation and climate-smart agricultural practices in the United States

Kent D. Messer, Hannah Correia, Paul J. Ferraro, Maria Bowman, Kelsey Larson, Bryan Pratt, Jing Gao, Linda S. Prokopy, Laura A. Paul
article en

Abstract

Achieving sustainability goals requires that humans change their behavior not just once but persistently. Yet despite decades of research on the adoption of conservation and climate-smart agricultural practices, little is known about the extent to which these practices persist over time. One key reason is the lack of longitudinal, field-level data. Using ground-verified, longitudinal data on cover cropping across thousands of farm parcels in Indiana (USA), we find that persistence is low and contrasts sharply with the predictions made by Indiana conservation experts. We also find low persistence in a new national dataset of self-reported cover cropping by farm operators. The potential for low behavioral persistence in sustainable agricultural practices raises essential questions about the design of conservation programs and the modeling and valuation of ecosystem services.

Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesVol. 122(43)
University of Vermont (US), Economic Research Service (US), United States Department of Agriculture (US), Johns Hopkins University (US), William Carey University (US), Montana State University (US), University of North Dakota (US), Johns Hopkins Medicine (US), Institute of Geography of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK), University of Delaware (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 72%
Land Use and Ecosystem Services
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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Beyond adoption: The persistence of conservation and climate-smart agricultural practices in the United States — Kent D. Messer, Hannah Correia, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS