Flexible Conservation Measures on Working Land: What Challenges Lie Ahead?

Andrea Cattaneo, Roger Claassen, Robert Johansson (rob@sugaralliance.org) and Marca Weinberg

No 7248, Economic Research Report from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

Abstract: From 1985 to 2002, most Federal conservation dollars going to farm operators have been to retire land from crop production. Yet most U.S. farmland (850 million acres) remains in active production. The Farm Security and Rural Investment (FSRI) Act of 2002 sharply increased conservation funding and earmarked most of the increase for working-land payment programs (WLPPs). The design and implementation of WLPPs will largely determine the extent to which environmental goals are achieved and whether they are cost effective. We simulate potential environmental gains as well as adjustments in agricultural production, price, and income associated with various WLPP features to illustrate tradeoffs arising from WLPP design and implementation. Competitive bidding with the use of environmental indices to rank producers for enrollment is most cost effective. Payments based on past conservation will help support farm incomes, but limit the amount of additional environmental benefit that can be generated under a fixed budget.

Keywords: Land; Economics/Use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/7248/files/er050005.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:uersrr:7248

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.7248

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economic Research Report from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search (aesearch@umn.edu).