An Evaluation of Production, Costs, and Sustainability on Crop Production in the Southern High Plains

An Evaluation of Production, Costs, and Sustainability on Crop Production in the Southern High Plains of Texas (Working Title)

The Texas Alliance for Water Conservation (TAWC) has gathered diversified crop and budget data from producers in the Southern High Plains (SHP) since 2005. The project captures the use of precision technologies and production practices in an operation in order to promote sustainability of the agricultural economy in the SHP. These sites represent various types of irrigation systems LESA, LEPA, MESA, SDI, and Furrow and tillage practices such as conventional, minimum tillage, and no till.

Budget data is used to evaluate the environmental and economic performance of producers in the SHP. In order to analyze sustainability, the data is then input in the Fieldprint Calculator, a tool developed by Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture.  Based on seven metrics the producers are evaluated based on their sustainable footprint. The objective of this study is to estimate the production, cost measures, and sustainability of cotton in the SHP.