Understanding Pollinator Habitat Conservation under Current Policy Using Economic Experiments

Chian Jones Ritten, Christopher Bastian, Jason Shogren, Thadchaigeni Panchalingam, Mariah Tanner Ehmke and Gregory Parkhurst
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Chian Jones Ritten: Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
Christopher Bastian: Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
Thadchaigeni Panchalingam: Department of Agricultural, Environment, and Development Economics, Ohio State University, 2120 Fyffe Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Gregory Parkhurst: Independent Researcher, Ogden, UT 84401, USA

Land, 2017, vol. 6, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: Pollinators provide critical ecosystems services vital to the production of numerous crops in the United States’ agricultural sector. However, the U.S. is witnessing a serious decline in the abundance and diversity of domestic and wild pollinators, which threatens U.S. food security. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has created the Pollinator Habitat Initiative (CP-42) to induce landowners to create quality habitat for pollinators by planting beneficial crops and wildflowers on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)-eligible land. Landowners’ potential conservation decisions under CP-42 and the resulting impact on land use decisions regarding crop production are not well-understood. We examine these issues by designing an economic experiment that simulates landowners’ decisions to enroll in CP-42. As our motivating example, we focus on how CP-42 might affect crop production patterns and the resulting returns in Goshen County, Wyoming. The results indicate that about 16% of CRP-eligible land would be enrolled. Based on the relatively low CP-42 payment, our subjects remove only lower value crops from production. Our results suggest that (1) all dry wheat and sunflower production and a portion of barley, corn, and dry beans could be taken out of production when transferred to pollinator habitat, and (2) that habitat fragmentation would likely occur, which would reduce the efficacy of pollination. Overall, our results suggest that there are significant limits to the overall effectiveness of the CP-42 policy.

Keywords: pollinator habitat; CP-42 enrollment; crop production; experimental economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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