Benefit and cost estimates for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) are given. The 2002 Farm Bill increased EQIP funding five fold and allows a broader scope of participation. Estimates for seven classes of environmental benefits and the sensitivity of those estimates to program...

A manure application cost model was used to examine the impact financial assistance from EQIP can have on reducing costs to confined hog operations from meeting a manure nutrient application standard. Sector costs are examined under alternative scenarios involving type of nutrient standard and...

The Environmental Benefits Index (EBI) ranks Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) offers by weighing program costs for enrolling land in CRP against six environmental objectives. This paper uses Monte Carlo simulations to analyze the sensitivity of CRP enrollment outcome to the specification of...

From 1985 to 2002, most Federal conservation dollars going to farm operators have been to retire land from crop production. Yet most U.S. farmland (850 million acres) remains in active production. The Farm Security and Rural Investment (FSRI) Act of 2002 sharply increased conservation funding...

The problem in estimating a social accounting matrix (SAM) for a recent year is to find an efficient and cost-effective way to incorporate and reconcile information from a variety of sources, including data from prior years. Based on information theory, the paper presents a flexible 'cross...

Since 1985, U.S. agricultural producers have been required to practice soil conservation on highly erodible cropland and conserve wetlands as a condition of farm program eligibility. This report discusses the general characteristics of compliance incentives, evaluates their effectiveness in...

A framework for analyzing conservation programs that rank applications using environmental indices is presented. We derive the optimal bid from the farmer's perspective for both land retirement and working lands agri-environmental payment programs and we analyze how these solutions depend on...

This paper assesses factors governing farmers’ decision to adopt adaptation/risk-mitigating strategies and evaluates the impact of adoption on crop productivity by utilizing household level data collected in 2011 from a nationally representative sample of 7842 households (11208 plots) in...

This book investigates key issues in regard to liberalization of agricultural trade in the Western Hemisphere, including potential scenarios for liberalization at the regional and multilateral levels, the effects of U.S. and European Union agricultural policies on trade, and how a Free Trade...