IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/arerjl/190995.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using Former Farmland for Biomass Crops: Massachusetts Landowner Motivations and Willingness to Plant

Author

Listed:
  • Timmons, David

Abstract

Producing biomass energy requires extensive land resources. In western Massachusetts, where almost 90 percent of former farmland is no longer in commercial use, we study factors that motivate landowners to grow biomass energy crops. A geographic information system model identifies a landowner population, and a contingent valuation survey reveals payments landowners are willing to accept (WTA) for growing biomass crops. The median WTA estimate is $321 per hectare per year, which is high compared to regional land rental rates. Nonpecuniary factors appear to be as important in landowner acceptance as profit opportunities, especially for nonfarmer landowners.

Suggested Citation

  • Timmons, David, 2014. "Using Former Farmland for Biomass Crops: Massachusetts Landowner Motivations and Willingness to Plant," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 43(3), pages 1-19, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:arerjl:190995
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.190995
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/190995/files/ARER2014%2043x3%20Timmons.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.190995?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Madhu Khanna & Xiaoguang Chen & Haixiao Huang & Hayri Onal, 2011. "Supply of Cellulosic Biofuel Feedstocks and Regional Production Pattern," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(2), pages 473-480.
    2. Jensen, Kimberly L. & Clark, Christopher D. & Ellis, Pamela & English, Burton C. & Menard, R. Jamey & Walsh, Marie E., 2006. "Farmer Willingness to Grow Switchgrass for Energy Production," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21355, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Conway, M.Christine & Amacher, Gregory S. & Sullivan, Jay & Wear, David, 2003. "Decisions nonindustrial forest landowners make: an empirical examination," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 181-203.
    4. Max, Wendy & Lehman, Dale E., 1988. "A behavioral model of timber supply," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 71-86, March.
    5. Epplin, Francis M. & Clark, Christopher D. & Roberts, Roland K. & Hwang, Seonghuyk, 2007. "AJAE Appendix: Challenges to the Development of a Dedicated Energy Crop," American Journal of Agricultural Economics APPENDICES, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1-13, December.
    6. Gregory, S. Amacher & Christine Conway, M. & Sullivan, Jay & Gregory, S. Amacher, 2003. "Econometric analyses of nonindustrial forest landowners: Is there anything left to study?," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 137-164.
    7. Hipple, Pat & Duffy, Michael, 2002. "Farmer's Motivation for Adoption of Switchgrass," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10347, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    8. Smith, David J. & Schulman, Candi & Current, Dean & Easter, K. William, 2011. "Willingness of Agricultural Landowners to Supply Perennial Energy Crops," 2011 Annual Meeting, July 24-26, 2011, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 103930, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Cameron, Trudy Ann, 1988. "A new paradigm for valuing non-market goods using referendum data: Maximum likelihood estimation by censored logistic regression," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 355-379, September.
    10. David H. Newman & David N. Wear, 1993. "Production Economics of Private Forestry: A Comparison of Industrial and Nonindustrial Forest Owners," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 75(3), pages 674-684.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giuseppe Bonazzi & Mattia Iotti, 2016. "Evaluation of Investment in Renovation to Increase the Quality of Buildings: A Specific Discounted Cash Flow ( DCF ) Approach of Appraisal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Mutandwa, Edward & Grala, Robert K. & Petrolia, Daniel R., 2019. "Estimates of willingness to accept compensation to manage pine stands for ecosystem services," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 75-85.
    3. Mattia Iotti & Giuseppe Bonazzi, 2016. "Assessment of Biogas Plant Firms by Application of Annual Accounts and Financial Data Analysis Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-19, September.
    4. Lal, Pankaj & Wolde, Bernabas & Alavalapati, Janaki & Burli, Pralhad & Munsell, John, 2016. "Forestland owners' willingness to plant pine on non-forested land for woody bioenergy in Virginia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 52-57.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Timmons, David, 2014. "Using Former Farmland for Biomass Crops: Massachusetts Landowner Motivations and Willingness to Plant," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 0, pages 1-19.
    2. Joshi, Sudiksha & Arano, Kathryn G., 2009. "Determinants of private forest management decisions: A study on West Virginia NIPF landowners," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 132-139, March.
    3. Lynes, Melissa K. & Bergtold, Jason S. & Williams, Jeffery R. & Fewell, Jason E., 2016. "Willingness of Kansas farm managers to produce alternative cellulosic biofuel feedstocks: An analysis of adoption and initial acreage allocation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 336-348.
    4. Eric Nazindigouba KERE & Jérôme FONCEL & Marielle BRUNETTE, 2014. "Attitude towards Risk and Production Decision: An Empirical analysis on French private forest owners," Working Papers 201410, CERDI.
    5. Størdal, Ståle & Lien, Gudbrand & Baardsen, Sjur, 2008. "Analyzing determinants of forest owners' decision-making using a sample selection framework," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 159-176, June.
    6. Petucco, Claudio & Abildtrup, Jens & Stenger, Anne, 2015. "Influences of nonindustrial private forest landowners’ management priorities on the timber harvest decision—A case study in France," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 152-166.
    7. Fewell, Jason E. & Bergtold, Jason S. & Williams, Jeffery R., 2011. "Farmers’ Willingness to Grow Switchgrass as a Cellulosic Bioenergy Crop: A Stated Choice Approach," 2011 Annual Meeting, June 29-July 1, 2011, Banff, Alberta,Canada 109776, Western Agricultural Economics Association.
    8. G.C., Shivan & Mehmood, Sayeed R., 2012. "Determinants of nonindustrial private forest landowner willingness to accept price offers for woody biomass," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 47-55.
    9. Marielle Brunette & Jérôme Foncel & Nazindigouba Eric Kéré, 2014. "Attitude towards Risk and Production Decision: An Empirical analysis on French private forest owners," Working Papers halshs-00981350, HAL.
    10. Granoszewski, Karol & Spiller, Achim, 2013. "Langfristige Rohstoffsicherung in der Supply Chain Biogas: Status Quo und Potenziale vertraglicher Zusammenarbeit," Department of Agricultural and Rural Development (DARE) Discussion Papers 260820, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development (DARE).
    11. Mäntymaa, Erkki & Juutinen, Artti & Tyrväinen, Liisa & Karhu, Jouni & Kurttila, Mikko, 2018. "Participation and compensation claims in voluntary forest landscape conservation: The case of the Ruka-Kuusamo tourism area, Finland," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 14-24.
    12. Robert Perlack, Robert & Eaton, Lawrence & Thurhollow, Anthony & Langholtz, Matt & De La Torre Ugarte, Daniel, 2011. "US billion-ton update: biomass supply for a bioenergy and bioproducts industry," MPRA Paper 89324, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2011.
    13. Dinh, Hoang Huu & Nguyen, Trung Thanh & Hoang, Viet-Ngu & Wilson, Clevo, 2017. "Economic incentive and factors affecting tree planting of rural households: Evidence from the Central Highlands of Vietnam," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(PA), pages 14-24.
    14. Fewell, Jason E. & Bergtold, Jason S. & Williams, Jeffery R., 2016. "Farmers' willingness to contract switchgrass as a cellulosic bioenergy crop in Kansas," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 292-302.
    15. Bergtold, Jason S. & Shanoyan, Aleksan & Fewell, Jason E. & Williams, Jeffery R., 2017. "Annual bioenergy crops for biofuels production: Farmers' contractual preferences for producing sweet sorghum," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 724-731.
    16. Jiang, Yong & Swinton, Scott M., 2008. "Market Interactions, Farmer Choices, and the Sustainability of Growing Advanced Biofuels," Staff Paper Series 43634, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    17. Vokoun, Melinda & Amacher, Gregory S. & Sullivan, Jay & Wear, Dave, 2010. "Examining incentives for adjacent non-industrial private forest landowners to cooperate," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 104-110, February.
    18. Gouzaye, Amadou & Epplin, Francis, 2016. "Restricting Switchgrass Biomass Feedstock Production to Marginal Land to Limit Competition with Food Production," 2016 Annual Meeting, February 6-9, 2016, San Antonio, Texas 229200, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    19. Lynes, Melissa K. & Bergtold, Jason S. & Williams, Jeffery R. & Fewell, Jason E., 2012. "Determining Farmers’ Willingness-To-Grow Cellulosic Biofuel Feedstocks on Agricultural Land," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124777, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Swallow, Stephen K., 1996. "Economic Issues in Ecosystem Management: An Introduction and Overview," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 83-100, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:arerjl:190995. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nareaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.