Using stochastic dominance, this paper examines the adoption of the Conservation Compliance Program (CCP) in twelve Iowa soil types. Subsidies necessary to compensate producers for the increased risk of compliance strategies are estimated. Results indicate that to promote voluntary compliance...

In recent years, direct payments—a type of farm commodity program payment—have made up a large share of Federal agriculture assistance that could be withheld from farmers who fail to comply with highly erodible land conservation (conservation compliance and sodbuster) or wetland conservation...

Agri-environmental policy is at a crossroads. Over the past 20 years, a wide range of policies addressing the environmental implications of agricultural production have been implemented at the Federal level. Those policies have played an important role in reducing soil erosion, protecting and...

Beginning, limited-resource, and socially disadvantaged farmers make up as much as 40 percent of all U.S. farms. Some Federal conservation programs contain provisions that encourage participation by such “targeted” farmers and the 2008 Farm Act furthered these efforts. This report compares...

A programming model is used to assess the welfare effects of regional and practice specifications contained in New York State's Draft Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) proposal. Net social benefits are nearly 75% lower than options that explicitly account for opportunity costs of...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/20/11.

In this poster, we report selected socio-economic findings from analysis of the Bad River Water Quality project (BRWQ) implemented in western South Dakota from 1990 through 2004. An overview of various BRWQ project phases are presented, along with analysis of cost of conservation practices...

Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators, 2012, describes trends in economic, structural, resource, and environmental indicators in the agriculture sector, focusing on changes since the release of Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators, 2006. These indicators are useful...

A deeper understanding of barriers to participation in conservation programs, including farmer transaction costs, may improve program design and implementation as well as producer outreach, and thus improve water quality. Data on perceived barriers and transaction costs from the 2012 USDA...

Conservation payments lead to improvement in environmental quality only if farmers and ranchers who receive them adopt conservation practices that would not have been adopted without the payment. When a voluntary payment causes a change in practice(s) that lead(s) to improved environmental...