Limitations in Evaluating Environmental and Agricultural Policy Coordination Benefits

John Miranowski, J. Hrubovcak and M. LeBlanc

Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Agricultural policy has traditionally been concerned with the maintenance and stability of farm income, and the provision of a stable food supply at low relative prices. The U.S. Food Security Act of 1985 was the first farm legislation to directly tie farm income and environmental concerns through the Conservation Reserve Program, conservation compliance, sodbuster, and swampbuster provisions. The coordination of conservation and farm income policies contributed to commodity supply control by reducing the availability of arable land, and it promoted environmental quality by removing some highly erodible land and wetlands from crop production. A number of new environmental and food safety initiatives are also being enacted outside the agricultural policy process. The most significant piece of legislation is the Water Quality Act of 1987, designed to control agricultural nonpoint source pollutants that affect water quality. In addition, amendments to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act are being considered. Efforts are also underway to protect ground water and endangered species.

Date: 1990-05-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in American Economic Review, May 1990, vol. 80 no. 2, pp. 208-212

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:isu:genres:10697

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics Iowa State University, Dept. of Economics, 260 Heady Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1070. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Curtis Balmer ().