Cover Crops Press Release Available for Members to Send to Local Media Outlets

While the season for aerial applicators is still going strong in parts of the country and beginning to slow down in others, many applicators are seeding cover crop seeds into late summer and early fall. NAAA has prepared a sample press release (this link will open a Word document) that you can personalize to your own aerial application business and send to your local media outlets. The press release serves the purpose of alerting the public that they may still see and hear your ag plane working. It also educates the public on the great conservation practice of seeding cover crops.

A direct link to the press release is here or you can access it through the Media Kit link on the NAAA website.

Aerial applicators seed 3.8 million acres of cover crops annually which means they are responsible for helping to sequester 1.9 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent annually. According to the EPA, this would be the equivalent of removing approximately 412,000 cars with carbon-combustion engines from the roads each year.

Aerial application offers the ability to spread cover crop seeds over the existing cash crop without any disruption to the standing crop. This means the cover crop can already be established when the cash crop is harvested. Using a drill to plant cover crops requires a terrestrial vehicle and for the grower to wait until their cash crop is out of the field, which might not be the best timing for establishing a healthy cover crop. This can be especially true in northern parts of the U.S. where the first frost can interfere with cover crop growth if they are seeded too late.

Farmers using climate-smart agricultural conservation practices, such as no-till and cover cropping, may be eligible for the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Stewardship Program, and Conservation Technical Assistance producer-led grants and cost-share programs.