Inside a barn in southwest Missouri, Macauley Kincaid operates a massive contraption of wood and metal affixed with pipes, pulleys and wheels.
"This was like state of the art for its time. I mean, this was the bee's knees back in the '80s," he said.
With the help of gravity, recently harvested barley seeds sift through four levels of screens in the mill. Kindcaid is the second generation in his family to cultivate crops for seed production, and he's still using the technology his uncle invested in 40 years ago.
"For every crop we clean, they have different recommended screen sizes and different air pressure that you run on each seed … you get larger seeds very clean and little to no weed seeds," he said. "That's where you want to be."
Kincaid conducts the laborious seed testing and cleaning process so his product can be certified. From the sorting elevator, the seeds are bagged and sold to be planted by farmers throughout southwest Missouri and the Midwest. But they won't be harvested.
Kincaid sells cover crops — vegetation that grows in the offseason to keep otherwise bare ground covered to reduce erosion and retain moisture.
Need for regenerative farming
After decades of industrial scale farming, Midwestern soil is suffering. That's on top of increasingly severe weather caused by climate change putting farmers at risk.
Many are turning to conservation methods such as cover crops to revive the soil and increase farmland resiliency. It's a movement called regenerative agriculture.
Kincaid sells a product that can launch farmers into a new way of cultivating the land. An essential part of his job is to answer questions and provide guidance for those new to this practice, which he feels comfortable doing because he has firsthand experience with the crops he's selling.
"I think a lot of the reason why I have repeat customers is because they know that when they call Mac, I'm going to give them the honest truth of the information," Kincaid said.
He describes his farm as "100% regenerative" and aims to farm in a way that heals nature.
"We just believe that this is the way of the future, and it will help our farm financially," Kincaid said. "It will help the environment, whether that's wildlife … the insect life … it helps the atmosphere, it helps water quality. We also help the fishermen downriver from us."
Results may vary
Although cover crop adoption has been growing, the practice is deployed on only about 5% of U.S. farmland acres, according to the most recent census of agriculture.
There are a variety of reasons farmers may be hesitant to plant cover crops. There is the upfront cost and labor of buying and planting a second crop that won't yield an immediate monetary return.
Jennifer Simmelink, a farmer and executive director of the Kansas Soil Health Alliance, an organization that promotes sustainable farming practices, said it comes down to this:
"Can the operator, and can the farm, absorb the risk that comes with doing something new, knowing that it might take a few years for the full profitability to be seen?"
She said the transition from conventional farming methods to regenerative ones can be challenging. Even if cover crops result in long-term gains for soil health, they could be a short-term disaster if the cover crop doesn't align with weather, soil and climate conditions.
In an industry with slim margins, farmers aren't incentivized to take that risk.
"It's so hard to put out: if you plant this, this will be your results, because it can vary," Simmelink said.
Regional research
The University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture is now leading a national project with more than 40 researchers looking to decrease that variance. Scientists are working with farmers to test how cover crop species perform across 14 different regions. This fall, the project expanded to include participants in over half of U.S. states.
"Our objective is to improve cover crop varieties and release new cover crop varieties that improve on the existing ones," said Solveig Hanson, who coordinates the national cover crop breeding network.
The project aims to boost overall cover crop usage by exploring the scientific, economic and social barriers farmers face. Researchers hope to bolster the industry by creating new seed varieties that can thrive in certain regions, climates and soil conditions.
"Then we plant them in nurseries, we observe them, we select the best ones and advance them," Hanson said.
Researchers hope their tests will give farmers more assurances that certified seeds will work on their land, specifically. These "named varieties" — a kind of name-brand seed — could be less of a gamble than untested, uncleaned seed mixtures of unknown quality, colloquially referred to as "bin run seed."
But convincing farmers to use name-brand seed as opposed to cheaper, uncertified seed mixtures, which they can buy from a neighbor, depends on the ability of researchers and seed companies to prove the potential results are worth the higher price.
"What there's market space for really translates into what farmers see value in, and what they see enough added value in to pay whatever additional cost there is for a named variety," Hanson said.
Long-term gain, short-term risk
Thirteen years ago, farmer Ben Cramer decided to try planting cover crops.
"At that point, I wasn't sure it was going to work, but we knew it could," Cramer said.
The brutal 2012 drought that hit much of the Midwest meant the cover crops he planted in dry western Kansas didn't take off.
"It didn't work great those first two years, and we learned maybe we got to rethink this a little bit," he said.
Cramer and his father, with whom he farms, didn't plant cover crops for a few years after that. When they returned to the practice, they planted different species, deeper rooted varieties and drought tolerant crops that can handle the heat.
"And (we) found that that worked significantly better for us," Cramer said.
More than a decade since that disastrous first year, Cramer is now helping others find success in sustainable farming practices through a regional farmer education network called No Till on the Plains.
He said he thinks adoption of cover crops is growing — and so is the understanding that people need support to get over the initial hurdles.
"Producers are, for the most part, willing to share their successes and their failures … so that helps cut that learning curve down significantly," Cramer said.
Over time, healthy soils require less chemical fertilizers to produce a crop. Reducing the "inputs" farmers need to buy saves them money.
But the time it takes for those savings to come to fruition can deter farmers from making changes. Simmelink of the Kansas Soil Health Alliance said long-term environmental benefits can be harder to see than a monetary return on investment.
"It's easier to see money gained than money saved," she said. "We understand that there's bills that need (to be) paid and there could be loans … you need to make sure that you're maintaining profitability while taking these steps."
Cramer said the financial barriers to changing farming practices stack up on top of the cultural ones.
"You've been doing something a certain way for a long time, and it's maybe been working fairly well for you. Maybe not perfect, but fairly well. It's hard to change," he said.
As leaders of farmer support organizations, Simmelink and Cramer regularly get asked about what cover crops they're planting and what varieties they recommend. But they say that's not exactly the right question.
"What are your individual goals for what you want that cover crop to do? Do you want it suppressing weeds? Do you want to graze it? Do you simply want it keeping your soil in place," Simmelink said.
"What's the end goal here?" Cramer said. "If you can figure that out, then you can work backwards from there."
Bang for the buck
Zach Louk is a salesman and handles purchasing for Green Cover, a cover crop seed company based in Nebraska. Every fall he fields questions from farmers about how to successfully deploy cover crops.
"Once the combines start rolling, the phones really start to ring a lot," Louk said.
That's because for soil to retain nutrients and moisture, it needs to contain a living root for as long as possible. Meaning that once the cash crops such as wheat, corn or soybeans are harvested, cover crops must be planted immediately thereafter.
Green Cover specializes in cover crop seed, and the company's sales team is spread across the Midwest and Great Plains.
"Our goals are to help those producers care for their land, make it healthier, so that the next generation of those producers can benefit from that," Louk said. "It's a longevity type approach to farming."
Louk estimates that 15% to 20% of Green Cover customers are new to using cover crops. The company is participating in the Mizzou-led national research project because, as Louk says, successful sales are based on trust with the customer and a consistent product.
"I'm directly very interested in that information and how things work … our customers are as well," he said. "It's really important to know what you're buying and it's really important to know that quality does matter."
Much of what farmers already grow can be used as a cover crop — wheat, barley, rye, clover, radish — so long as it suits the environment.
Kincaid in southwest Missouri is experimenting with a mix of sunflowers, kale, legumes, okra, watermelon and more. He said his cover crops improve the health of his soil, reduce erosion and contribute to a robust ecosystem on his farm. It also provides food for his cattle.
The cover crop seeds he grows, cleans, certifies and sells are the brand name varieties. He's also helping the national cover crop project test about a dozen crops.
As a proponent of the regenerative agriculture movement, Kincaid winces when he's called a salesman.
He said it's not his job to just sell seed. But rather, to show farmers a way to revive their land.
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