The Tillage Input: Technical Change, Markets, and Policy

Abstract

Tillage, the act of cultivating soil in order to improve crop growing conditions, is closely associated with the emergence of settled societies. Critical for food security, incentivized by crop sector profitability, and implicated in environmental degradation events such as the US Dust Bowl era, the activity has long been matter for public policy. Our intent here is to highlight recent developments in supply and demand for the activity as well as public interest in overseeing whether and how soil cultivation occurs.