Estimating the Effect of Easements on Agricultural Production

Nicole Karwowski

No 30156, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: US crops face higher losses as growing season temperatures rise and destructive disasters become commonplace. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) easement programs offer an adaptation strategy to improve agricultural resilience. Easements impact agricultural production directly by reducing planting on marginal land and indirectly by improving yields on surrounding cropland. I use national USDA data from the past three decades to build a county-level panel. I employ a regression model with two-way fixed effects to quantify how easement land share impacts yields, risk, as well as acres planted, failed, and prevented planted. A 100% increase in land share of wetland easements increases yields by 0.34%, 0.77% and 0.46% for corn, soybeans, and wheat. Easements improve yields by mitigating the effect of excess precipitation and extreme degree days. Wetland easements reduce soybean losses from excess moisture, heat, and disease by $3.59, $6.07 and $11.23 for each dollar of liability. I also find evidence of a spillage effect in which producers reduce soybean and wheat acreage but increase corn production. This work quantifies the ecosystem benefits of easement habitats and uncovers program externalities including yield spillovers and a spillage effect. My results have policy implications for future NRCS funding and targeting decisions.

JEL-codes: Q1 Q15 Q18 Q54 Q57 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
Note: EEE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Estimating the Effect of Easements on Agricultural Production , Nicole Karwowski. in American Agriculture, Water Resources, and Climate Change , Libecap and Dinar. 2024

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w30156.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:nbr:nberwo:30156

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w30156

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().