Sustainable farming adoption in the US increases but penetration stays low

Around 90% of farmers are aware of sustainable farming practices.

Around 90% of farmers in the US reported awareness of sustainable farming practices, but implementation is kept within a small share of their acreage, McKinsey reported. 

In a report, it was found that sustainable farming initiatives are only applied generally to less than 30% of their acreage. 

“There is an opportunity to increase acreage penetration among current users, especially for practices such as cover cropping and use of biologicals,” the report read. 

McKinsey noted there are opportunities to increase overall adoption by educating farmers on newer practices. 

For instance, 74% have heard of on-farm renewable energy, but only 13% have adopted it and only 7% plan to in the next two years. 

In the same report, it was revealed that specialty-crop farmers lead in the adoption of sustainable farming. 

“Adoption is at least 20 percent greater among specialty-crop farmers for half of the practices surveyed. For example, biologicals adoption is 11 percentage points higher for specialty crops than for row crops; 20 percent of specialty farmers said they have adopted on-farm renewable-energy generation compared with 11 percent of row-crop farmers.”