A Spatial Analysis of Conservation Reserve Program Participants: The Impact of Absenteeism on Participation Decisions

Michael P. Brady and Cynthia J. Nickerson

No 49369, 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: Given that approximately half of all U.S. farmland is leased, absentee (non-operator) landowners have a significant role in agriculture. Because decisions about how to use farmland can be affected by ownership status, tenure can have far reaching implications for the production of food and fiber, as well as the extent to which environmentally sensitive farmland is cropped or is put into a conservation use. In order to better understand whether conservation participation decisions, and potential responses to factors such as commodity prices, may vary by tenure status, we exploit a unique dataset that identifies where participants associated with Conservation Reserve Program contracts live relative to the land enrolled. These data provide improved spatial information on tenure status relative to previous sources. This study seeks to improve our understanding of the extent and characteristics of absentee landowners in CRP. These findings can help improve policy by recognizing how the heterogeneity across landowners may lead participants to respond differently to changes in market or policy incentives.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Environmental Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27
Date: 2009
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/49369/files/Brady_Nickerson_aaea2009_2.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ags:aaea09:49369

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.49369

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().