The continued decline in the availability of water from the Ogallala Aquifer has led to an increased interest in conservation policies designed to extend the life of the aquifer to sustain rural economies in the Texas Panhandle. This study evaluates the effectiveness of five policies in terms of...

Nonagricultural factors impact land values to cause a divergence of discounted cash rents for agricultural land and land values. Focus is given to the portion of land values attributable to discounted cash rents. Unique characteristics for cropland and pasture lead to differences in...

According to the Executive Order 12866, a qualitative and quantitative assessment for any Federal mandate resulting in annual expenditures of $100 million or more is required. This study determines how many of the approximately 34.5 million acres of CRP land is brought back in economic use, how...

Natural amenities like green open space are a valuable resource to support quality of life and public health. However, limited studies have analyzed the relationship between such resources and specific indicators of public health. We investigate the relationship between natural green space and...

We seek to determine if the tax-based payment approach is a valid alternative to existing incentive payment approaches for forest carbon sequestration. To achieve the objective, we test a hypothesis that waiving the property tax rate on forestland provides incentives to landowners for...

Playas are small wetlands, averaging 14 acres in area, which periodically fill with rainwater and evaporate, and are not connected to any other body of surface water. On the Texas High Plains, the roughly 17,000 existing playas are a source of recharge for the Ogallala aquifer and the greatest...

Climate change, coupled with biofuels development and other factors may well be changing US land usage patterns. We use a spatial econometric approach to estimate the drivers of US land use transitions in recent years. We consider transitions between six major land uses: agricultural land,...

Groundwater use plays an important role in agriculture where the lack of timely rainfall can lower yields. Policy makers strive to conserve ecosystem services, such as groundwater supply, while at the same time providing for economic growth. We develop a spatially explicit landscape level model...

This research applies recent developments in the analysis of firm location determinants, applying local geographic concentration indices to determine and the extent to which clustering influences the location decisions of cellulosic biofuel facilities. We focus on ethanol production from...

The Agricultural Act of 2014 brings significant changes to U.S. farm policy, eliminating Countercyclical (CC), Fixed Direct, and Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) programs, and introducing new Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) programs, which provide payments...