The total number of survey responses was: 47
The median age of respondents was 60, with respondents ranging in age from 32 to 76
In terms of the number of years respondents have been making production decisions on the farm, the median was 35, the range was 2 to 61
Farms were from the following counties
| County | Count |
|---|---|
| Middlesex | 11 |
| Lambton | 7 |
| Kent | 6 |
| Essex | 5 |
| Leeds and Grenville | 5 |
| Durham | 4 |
| Elgin | 4 |
| Carleton | 2 |
| Lanark | 1 |
| Victoria | 1 |
| York | 1 |
and the following watersheds
| Watershed | Count |
|---|---|
| St.Clair | 12 |
| Lower Thames | 9 |
| Rideau | 5 |
| Upper Thames | 4 |
| Kawartha | 3 |
| Essex | 2 |
| South Nation | 2 |
| Canard River | 1 |
| Cataraqui | 1 |
| Catfish creek | 1 |
| Ganaraska | 1 |
| Kettle Creek | 1 |
| Lake Erie | 1 |
| Lake Simcoe | 1 |
| Mississippi | 1 |
| NA | 1 |
| Rouge River | 1 |
I work with an agronomist to:
My agronomist often discusses the benefits of cover crops with me. 
The largest barrier I face to planting cover crops is:
I use cover crops on _ % of my cash crop acres in any given year.
Exploring how % of cash crops using cover crops varies with other survey variables
When asked if cost-share programs have helped to increase the adoption of cover crops. Responses were split, with 61.7% of respondents selecting a number less than average, and 36.2% selecting a number greater than average.
When asked about how cover crop adoption was for farmers in their region, specifically asking repsondents to estimate the percentage of farmers in their region that are using cover crops, the median percentage was 20 although responses ranged from 1 to 76.
We compared the how farmers perceived neighbouring farmers practices to what they were doing on their farm, which shows that at least that when producers see local farmers using cover crops, they are more likely to adopt the practice at greater levels. The Pearson’s r correlation between these variables is 0.4715904. This correlation drops dramatically when compared to the estimated percentage of acres neighbouring farmers are using, suggesting that once the practice gets established in an area, more and more producers will be likely to adopt it. Note also that this relationship has a threshold at around 25%, which may be the regional threshold needed for more widespread adoption.
##
## Call:
## lm(formula = x$cc_pct_cash ~ I(x$pct_farms_cc_my_region^2) +
## x$age + x$st_increasing + x$cc_in_ontario)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -52.348 -19.958 -5.237 19.852 80.568
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 56.883262 32.577691 1.746 0.08957 .
## I(x$pct_farms_cc_my_region^2) 0.019619 0.006832 2.871 0.00689 **
## x$age -0.390272 0.490314 -0.796 0.43142
## x$st_increasing -0.235933 0.234649 -1.005 0.32157
## x$cc_in_ontario -0.038469 0.215461 -0.179 0.85933
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 29.84 on 35 degrees of freedom
## (7 observations deleted due to missingness)
## Multiple R-squared: 0.2621, Adjusted R-squared: 0.1778
## F-statistic: 3.108 on 4 and 35 DF, p-value: 0.02735
Which shows that peer pressure was the least important need/mechanism to improve adoption, while additional studies/infromation and trying it for a long enough period to realize the benefits had the most importance. Interestingly, farmers do not perceive explicity peer pressure, but may be more likely to adopt the practice if they see others in their region using cover crops.
I have a valid soil test (within 3-5 years) for my fields / asking about barriers: 
I am aware of programs that offer financial support for soil testing: 
In my region I think _% of farmers regularly soil test (ie. Have a valid soil test within 3-5years). 
Acres vs location 