Reduction in Annual Fuel Use from Conservation Tillage

Excerpt: Conservation tillage, meaning at least one of a field’s rotated crops is produced with reduced tillage, is one of the most widely adopted conservation practices in the United States. The CEAP II survey of farmers from 2013 through 2016 indicates that nearly 87 percent of the Nation’s cultivated cropland acres use some form of conservation tillage for at least one crop in the crop rotation. In addition to the more commonly recognized environmental benefit of reduced soil disturbance, conservation tillage significantly reduces fuel consumption and therefore emissions from operations.