U.S. farm legislation is due to be updated in 2007, to become effective with the 2008 crop year. Major questions surround the role of environmental or conservation provisions in the new Federal farm bill. In this paper, I first present some background on the evolution of U.S....

As part of the sustainable agriculture research program in the Economics Department at South Dakota State University (SDSU), ‘organic’ and ‘conventional’ crop prices have been compared for nearly a decade. This pamphlet serves as an update of price comparisons through 2003 and a final...

The potential of the USDA’s new Conservation Security Program (CSP) for inducing farmers to adopt more ecologically diverse crop rotations in the Western Corn Belt is examined. Simulations are conducted for a representative farm model in southeastern South Dakota, using different assumptions...

The potential of the USDA’s new Conservation Security Program (CSP) for inducing farmers to adopt more ecologically diverse crop rotations in the Western Corn Belt is examined. Simulations are conducted for a representative farm model in southeastern South Dakota, using different assumptions...