The U.S. federal government implements environmental, biofuels and crop insurance programs that influence land use. They are not well integrated in that cost savings from crop insurance subsidies are not acknowledged when screening land for retirement or when calculating the cost of land...

Many of the Nation’s conservation programs seek to achieve multiple environmental objectives. Implementing a multi-objective program efficiently requires program managers to balance different environmental and cost objectives. A number of conservation programs use an index approach to...

Recent research has questioned the extent to which government policies, including conservation and risk management programs, have influenced environmental indicators. The impacts of income-supporting and risk management programs on soil erosion are considered. An econometric model of the...

This report contains the major findings from a survey of South Dakota CRP contract holders which is a major component of an SDSU research project on the ?Impact of CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) Acres in South Dakota Being Put Back Into Production.? The major objectives of the research are:...

The United States has invested large sums of resources in multiple conservation programs for agriculture over the past century. In this paper we focus on the impacts of program interactions. Specifically, using an integrated economic and bio-physical modeling framework, we consider the impacts...

Temporal spillovers occur when a conservation program changes what happens to land outside the temporal window of the conservation contract. This may happen when conservation improves land so that returns to non-conservation uses are increased, or when landowners' preferences become more...

Temporal spillovers occur when a conservation program changes the use made of a land parcel outside of the window of the conservation contract. This may happen when conservation improves land so that returns to non-conservation uses are increased, or when landowners' preferences become more...

Previous research on landowner willingness to retire land into the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is based on cross-sectional data prior to 2002. Using enrollment data on a CRP subprogram from 1998 to 2010 we find that incentives matter more for pasture than cropland, and we find that...

Playa lakes are very important to the Texas High Plains. They provide habitat for a wide variety of wildlife, and are the Ogallala Aquifer’s primary recharge source. Plowing and sedimentation have caused substantial damage to the overall health of many playas. A need exists to protect this...

Conservation programs faced with limited budgets often use a competitive enrollment mechanism. Goals of enrollment might include minimizing program expenditures, encouraging broad participation, and inducing adoption of enhanced environmental practices. We use experimental methods to evaluate an...