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...

This paper analyzes why USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program has a high rate of contract withdrawals. Using a logit model we examine whether withdrawals are linked to: (i)farmers bidding for payments that are too low, (ii)a learning phase about the program, (iii)the types of...

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...

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...

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...

This paper examines how jointness of environmental benefits and environmental heterogeneity affect auction designs and the potential benefits of green auctions over conventional flat-rate agri-environmental policies. A sealed bid green auction is used to promote an agri-environmental program...