Can grazing be a way to offset the costs of cover crops in the Southern Great Plains of Texas and Oklahoma?

Cover crops are widely promoted for soil health and water-related outcomes, including enhanced infiltration, reduced erosion, and improved water quality. However, adoption remains limited in semi-arid regions such as the Southern Great Plains of Texas and Oklahoma due to high establishment costs and soil moisture constraints. Integrating livestock grazing into cover crop systems may offer an economic pathway to offset costs while sustaining conservation benefits. This study examined producers’ and non-producers’ perceptions of grazing cover crops as a cost-offset strategy. Surveys were mailed to 3,000 agricultural producers across 81 counties in Texas and Oklahoma in spring 2025, yielding 167 usable responses (±7.6% margin of error at the 95% confidence level). Analyses included Fisher’s exact tests, Chi-square tests, and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests. Results indicated that among producers, practice adoption of grazing cover crops was significantly associated with income motivation ( p < 0.05) and with beliefs that grazing can offset cover crop costs ( p < 0.01). Producers who actively grazed cover crops for revenue were significantly more likely to view grazing as a cost-offset strategy than those who did not graze ( p < 0.05). In contrast, non-producers showed no statistically significant relationship between economic perceptions and cover crop adoption. Comparisons between groups showed that producers were significantly more likely than non-producers to report income motivation for grazing ( p = 0.046) and to believe that grazing offsets cover crop costs ( p = 0.012). These findings suggest that adopters view grazing as a strategy to reduce economic barriers to cover crop adoption while supporting soil health and water conservation in semi-arid agroecosystems.