Nonpoint sources of water pollutants, in particular, nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, are increasingly a focus of US water pollution policy. In most cases, agriculture is the largest contributor of these pollutants, in part because, until recently, it has largely remained unregulated....

Policymakers are concerned about nitrogen and phosphorus export to water bodies. Exports may be reduced by paying farmers to adopt practices to reduce runoff or by paying performance incentives tied to estimated run-off reductions. We evaluate the cost-effectiveness of practice and performance...

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Current day large animal facilities generate more manure than they need on their own feed production areas. Excessive nutrient applications deteriorate groundwater (nitrogen) and surface water quality (nitrogen and/or phosphorus). Due to differences in environmental and economic characteristics,...

Many watershed organizations have prioritized establishing streamside (riparian) buffers on agricultural land to improve water quality. Using data from a 2000 survey of 500 Maryland landowners, we examine what level of financial incentives they would require to install such buffers for 15 years...

This paper uses environmental risk assessment as a nutrient management planning tool to determine the best set of actions to control nutrient nonpoint source pollution in the horticultural industry. The framework minimizes costs subject to obtaining an environmental risk management score at or...

We examine the role of spatial interactions in conservation easements placed on prairie pothole habitat in western Canada. One of the goals of the conservation easement program we study is to protect contiguous habitat. We identify endogenous spatial interactions among conservation easements and...

Approximately 40% of farmland is rented in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2011). In our survey, approximately ninety-five percent of the farmers that rent land also farm on their own land. This provides a unique empirical opportunity to assess the influence of ownership on farmers’ decision to...

The existing empirical literature on farmers' use of soil-conserving, runoff-reducing farming practices, while sizable, contains relatively little information on the influence of cost on adoption decisions and on how farmers combine multiple practices into an overall conservation package. Such...