Do Agricultural Preservation Programs Affect Farmland Conversion?

Xiangping Liu () and Lori Lynch

No 9764, 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: More than 124 governmental entities concerned about suburban sprawl and farmland loss have implemented farmland preservation programs preserving 1.67 million acres at a cost of $3.723 billion. We ask how effective are these programs in slowing the rate of farmland loss. Using a unique 50-year 269 county panel data set on preservation programs and farmland loss for six Mid-Atlantic States, we employ the propensity score matching method to find strong empirical evidence that these programs have had a statistically significant effect on the rate of farmland loss. Preservation programs on average decrease the rate of farmland loss by 2.4 percentage points; a 33% decrease from the average 5-year rate of 7.31%.

Keywords: Land; Economics/Use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2007
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea07:9764

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.9764

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