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The Use Of Markets To Increase Private Investment in Environmental Stewardship—U.S. farmers and ranchers control significant amounts of natural resources that can provide a host of environmental services, including cleaner air and water, flood control, and wildlife. Creating markets for environmental services could increase private investment in environmental stewardship and increase the flow of environmental services. See also the related Amber Waves article.
Integrating Commodity and Conservation Programs: Design Options and Outcomes—Can a single program support farm income and encourage producers to adopt environmentally sound farming practices? Analysis of hypothetical scenarios shows that policymakers would face significant tradeoffs in designing a single program to achieve both goals. Cost-effective environmental gains are achieved largely by supporting producers who can deliver large environmental gains per dollar. These producers, however, are not necessarily those historically receiving commodity program payments. See also the related Amber Waves article.
Environmental Effects of Agricultural Land-Use Change: The Role of Economics and Policy—This report examines evidence on the relationship between agricultural land-use changes, soil productivity, and indicators of environmental sensitivity. ERS examines environmental outcomes of land-use conversion prompted by two agricultural programs that others have identified as potentially having important influences on land use and environmental quality: Federal crop insurance subsidies and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the Nation's largest cropland retirement program. See the related Amber Waves feature article.
Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators, 2006 Edition—The chapters in this report describe trends in resources used in and affected by agricultural production, as well as the economic conditions and policies that influence agricultural resource use and its environmental impacts. Specific analysis looks at policy measures used to address agriculture's impact on the environment, including land retirement and working-lands programs, compliance provisions, and farmland protection.
Balancing the Multiple Objectives of Conservation Programs—Many of the Nation's conservation programs use an index approach to prioritize environmental and cost objectives. The weights used in selection indices in the CRP (and in other conservation programs) determine which lands are enrolled, and the mixture of environmental objectives achieved. This report finds that small changes in index weights do not markedly affect national levels of environmental benefits, but larger changes can have a moderate impact. See the related Amber Waves summary article.
Emphasis Shifts in U.S. Conservation Policy—Amber Waves, July, 2006. To address the negative impacts and enhance the positive outcomes that some farming practices can have on natural resources, policymakers have both increased conservation program funding and shifted its emphasis.
Measuring the Success of Conservation Programs—Amber Waves, July, 2006. Though farmers may be induced by conservation program payments to change their farming practices, it is difficult to link their actions to outcomes, because they take place within a larger set of complex interactions.
Conservation-Compatible Practices and Programs: Who Participates?—Farm operators have an incentive to adopt farming practices that can increase their profits, but they are less encouraged by the prospect of undertaking costly practices that may benefit the environment but do little to improve their bottom lines. Operators of small farms and operators not primarily focused on farming are less likely to adopt management-intensive conservation practices or participate in working-land conservation programs. Also see the related Amber Waves finding and feature article.
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