Recent technological progress in high-speed planting (HSP) warrants economic analysis of its potential. A whole farm optimization model of a 1000 ha Kentucky, USA corn and soybean operation finds that operating cost savings (labor, fuel, tractor repairs) and yield increases couple in recovering annual ownership costs of HSP technology. Changes in farm net returns are positive for all 12-row planter scenarios and all double speed cases for the 16-row planter but not for a 50% increase in speed with the 16-row planter. The greatest profit potential occurred when adopting the combination of HSP and variable rate application (VRA), with increased net returns of up to 6.57% compared to conventional speed no VRA for the 12-row planter.

The Conservation Agriculture Project (CAP) of the North Dakota Natural Resources Trust (Trust) has demonstrated a new concept for delivering conservation education that improves farm economics while enhancing environmental health, restoring landscape functions and providing societal benefits. The 5-year project, initiated by the Trust in 2000, incorporated Resource Analysis Teams to assist four farmers and farm families serving as a demonstration in developing and implementing holistic farm plans. Resource Analysis Team members were agricultural, environmental, conservation and economic professionals. Resource Analysis Teams met with each demonstration farm family twice each year in a non-threatening setting, usually around the family's kitchen table. The integration of diverse knowledge bases resulted in an educational roundtable with all participants being educators and students at the same time. As round-table participants became familiar with the intricacies of each particular farm and with each other, adversarial relationships dissolved and team members worked together to move the farms toward sustainability—economic, environmental and social. This approach differs from most federal conservation programs to date, which have approached on-farm conservation in a piecemeal manner, only protecting a parcel of land or a critical problem area. For those programs, responsibility for searching out and implementing conservation practices has fallen primarily on the farmer, who also has had to assume associated risks. The Conservation Agriculture Project has demonstrated that the Resource Analysis Team approach yields positive results for the environment, wildlife, farm families and society while enhancing information delivery and improving communication and acceptance among diverse groups with varying agendas. Most importantly, it has demonstrated the need and positive impacts of delivering conservation education directly to farmers and ranchers, who manage 43% of the land nationwide.

In this paper we report on what “sustainable agriculture” means to farmers who seek to develop more sustainable farming systems. Group interviews were conducted with two groups of sustainable farmers in Kansas to learn how they developed their respective approaches, the kinds of parameters they have used to evaluate success and progress, and what other evaluation tools would be helpful to them. For the farmers we interviewed, the central meaning of sustainable agriculture is its holistic approach to assets management. It also means an alternative perspective on what constitutes success in farming. While economic considerations are important, they are balanced by other considerations such as environmental quality, quality of life, and the contributions the farmers can make to their communities. Sustainable agriculture also means an approach to agriculture that entails “thinking risks” as much as financial risks. Lastly, sustainable agriculture means whole farm planning; the farmers we interviewed were more interested in applying whole-farm planning principles based on their local knowledge, than in evaluation tools based on the expert knowledge of researchers and other scientists. The implications of what sustainable agriculture means to these farmers for research and educational programs are discussed.