Well there is a choice but with low grain prices farmers often plant even more marginal acres trying to replace lost profits. With the high prices for a unit of seed corn, all other input cost most marginal lands would be better left fallow. But farmers are not paid to not plant even when they know a dry year will cost them more than they invested. Hope springs eternal in planting season. Heck I bet most new combines are ordered then.
On my farms the farmer who tends it is not allowed to mow both sides of every ditch every year. I allow it to grow two to three years for cover for birds. Not the great hedge rows of my youth but not a farm with zero cover from end to end. You'd think I was asking him to go around with his fly open. He hates my silly rules but I have center pivot irrigation over 90 % of my land and that gives me a lot of leverage. Dry years kill farmers around there. Several corners and two small fields are set aside for cover crops each year. I found rotating the set aside fields works best. It was nicer when I could get CPR money but am still doing a little without it. If I was deeply in debt my views would be the same but ability to follow them would be weak.
