Regional Variation in the Efficacy of Conservation Programs

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Under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a provision of the Food Security Act of 1985, the federal government pays more than a billion dollars annually to landowners who have agreed to retire more than 25 million acres of cropland. Little is known, however, about the efficiency or equity of this program or its role in shaping land use in America. Using a geographical perspective, this project will involve the use of map-based documentary evidence and intensive fieldwork, including interviews conducted in 16 study areas. It will integrate data from disparate elements of the discipline of geography, including detailed information on the subtle gradients in agricultural land use and practices, micro-spatial patterns of soil productivity and erodibility within individual landholdings, and the influence of regional perceptions on landowners as they respond to changing economic and political conditions. The primary focus of this project is at the heart of geography, that is, the recording of patterns of land use and the subsequent identification of factors that help explain those patterns. Such an analysis in this context has the potential to lead to the development of new theory encompassing long-run dynamic effects of how farmers act in anticipation of government policies.