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Conservation-Compatible Practices and Programs: Who Participates?
Dayton Lambert, Patrick Sullivan, Roger Claassen, and
Linda Foreman
Economic Research Report No. (ERR14), February 2006
What Is the Issue?
Farm operators have a financial incentive to maintain the quality
of their land by limiting soil erosion, avoiding excessive chemical
inputs, and taking other steps to protect soil productivity.
Because many farm operators live on or near their farms, they
also have an incentive to reduce the onsite environmental degradation
often associated with farm production. However, farm operators
have little motivation to reduce offsite impacts, and farming
remains a significant source of sedimentation and nutrient loading
in some watersheds.
The Federal Government provides technical and financial support
to farm operators for a wide range of conservation practices
meant to reduce these offsite environmental impacts. Because
these programs are voluntary, their effectiveness depends on
the willingness of farm operators to participate. Operators'
decisions can be influenced by considerations other than profits
and the environment, such as off-farm work commitments and farm
ownership status. By examining the characteristics of farms
that have adopted conservation-compatible practices and participated
in USDA conservation programs, we can better understand how
potential participants might respond to market and program incentives.
What Did the Study Find?
The results of the analysis suggest that farm size, commodity
mix, and operator motivation are all associated with decisions
to use various types of conservation practices, but in different
ways.
Conservation-Compatible Management Practices
Management practices that provide environmental benefits and
profitability without large conversion costs (such as conservation
tillage, crop rotation, and the use of insect-resistant or herbicidetolerant
plants) have been adopted by farms of all sizes, largely without
direct financial assistance from conservation programs. However,
operators of small enterprises focused on nonfarm occupations
are less likely to adopt practices requiring extra time or expense
(such as variable-rate application of inputs or integrated pest
management) than operators of large enterprises whose primary
occupation is farming. Higher education, the use of outside
expertise, farm household reliance on farm income, and receipt
of commodity program payments all affect the likelihood of farmers
adopting conservation-compatible practices that are more management-intensive.
Structural and Vegetative Conservation Practices
Conservation structures like grass waterways and riparian buffers,
and vegetative measures such as planting farmland to grasses
and other conservation cover crops, come at a cost, both for
installation and in forgone production. Younger operators who
consider farming their primary occupation and who rely less
on off- farm income are more likely to install grass waterways,
contour strips, and other working-land structures compatible
with agricultural production. Farmers who install these structures
tend to receive only modest assistance from conservation programs.
More farm operators who plant conservation cover crops (either
to retire cropland or as part of some other land-use change)
consider themselves to be retired than those in the conservation
structure group, and they receive more conservation program
payments than other operators.
Working-Land Conservation Programs
Larger farms whose operators consider farming their primary
occupation are more likely to seek participation in working-land
conservation programs, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives
Program (EQIP). Farmers who take advantage of conservation programs
to install working-land practices typically enroll relatively
little acreage in the programs, particularly if they are involved
in the production of high-value crops.
Land Retirement Programs
Intensive use of land retirement programs is most common among
smaller "retired" and "lifestyle" farms.
Smaller farms whose operators are focused on nonfarm activities
are also more likely to take land out of production. "Wholefarm"
enrollees (those who effectively replace income from farm production
with Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) payments) are generally
older than other farm operators, are more reliant on nonfarm
sources of income, and account for roughly half of the farms
participating in CRP. Most of the remaining participants use
CRP to retire selected fields or portions of fields from production.
These "partial-farm" enrollees tend to be operators
of larger farms and to consider farming their primary occupation.
Policy Implications
Because working-land and land retirement programs appeal to
different types of farmers, both approaches may be needed to
address the conservation needs of a diverse agricultural sector.
Also, program incentives that assume all farmers aim to maximize
farm profits may not be as effective or efficient as flexible
incentive structures that can accommodate other farm operator
goals, such as timesaving and ease of use. Finally, policies
other than direct subsidies can provide substantial environmental
benefits. For example, conservation-compliance regulations,
technical assistance, and research to improve standard farming
practices (such as crop rotation) can all provide conservation
payoffs.
How Was the Study Conducted?
This report analyzes the business, operator, and household
characteristics of farms, focusing on those that have adopted
one or more of a select group of conservation-compatible management
practices or have installed one or more conservation structures,
with and without the assistance of USDA's major conservation
programs. Particular attention is focused on the Department's
farmland retirement programs, the largest of which is CRP, and
its workingland programs, most notably EQIP and the working-land
structures funded by CRP. Crop-specific data from the Agricultural
Resource Management Surveys (ARMS) of farms growing corn (in
2001), soybeans (in 2002), and cotton (in 2003) allow us to
examine the characteristics of farms that adopt conservation-management
practices. A special section of the 2001 ARMS survey of all
farms and ranches is used to examine the adoption of structural
and vegetative conservation practices.
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