Government agencies in urbanizing areas are increasingly utilizing purchase and transfer of development rights programs to preserve farmland and protect local farm economies. This article tests the effect of development restrictions imposed by permanent easement sales on farmland sales prices,...

Following the failure of legislative proposals for a multi-sector greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade policy, the shift in focus to energy sector policies ignores the perhaps substantial potential for GHG mitigation from agriculture/forestry. We review estimates of the current U.S. agriculture...

We investigate the effects of forest conservation requirements and zoning on the value of land undergoing subdivision. Land prices are increasing in the percentage of subdivision acreage developers are required to keep in forest, suggesting that forest conservation regulations increase the...

While agricultural land preservation programs seek to maximize the number of acres, to preserve productive farms, to preserve contiguous farms, and to preserve threatened farms, they are often evaluated solely on the number of acres preserved. Preserved parcels in four Maryland counties were...

The factors in uencing participation in both purchase of development rights and transfer of development rights farmland preservation programs are analyzed using data from a survey of agricultural landowners and from spatial data on individual farms collected using GIS for four Maryland counties....

Policy makers have turned to competition- based voluntary-enrollment programs as a cost-effective way to achieve preferred land uses. This paper studies bidder behavior in an innovative auction-based program in which farmers compete to sell and retire the right to develop their land. We derive a...

Given growing concerns about the loss of farmland in the US, governmental and nonprofit groups are seeking innovative, cost-effective methods to preserve lands that will elicit additional landowner participation. This article describes four innovative farmland preservation techniques and derives...