The odds are pretty good no-tillers rent at least part of their land and may be looking into the possibility of renting more.

According to the 2022 No-Till Operational Benchmark Survey, 467 owned a combined 305,576 acres of land. Respondents indicated they rented 236,783 acres of land and sharecropped about 86,206 acres of land. That’s a total of 628,565 acres, of which 48.6% are owned and 51.4% are either rented or sharecropped.

While no-till operators have known about conservation measures for years, there is a significant gap in knowledge among conservation practices between them and landlords. The reverse is also true: landlords may want operators to move to conservation agriculture but are uncertain how to address the issue. 

The editors at No-Till Farmer are here to help.

Earlier this month, the magazine published a free special report: How No-Till Improves Your Land Value. In it you’ll find the following:

• Landlords who want their ground treated well and who are willing to walk away from past tenants to accomplish that.
• Possible sources for income beyond seasonal yield figures
• How no-till improves both ecological and monetary land value.

For example, a study from North Carolina state found increasing no-till adoption at the county level by a paltry 1% can increase land values. The increase is about $7.86 per acre across 12 Midwestern states covered by the OpTIS database: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In Iowa, the land value increase is $14.75 per acre.