IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfpoli/v75y2018icp15-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changes in cropland area in the United States and the role of CRP

Author

Listed:
  • Hendricks, Nathan P.
  • Er, Emrah

Abstract

An understanding of the main drivers of land-use change is critical for policy recommendations that aim to meet the challenge of food and environmental security over the coming decades. Here we show that agricultural policy exerts substantial influence on cropland area in the United States through administration of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Looking at changes in the CRP over time and an understanding of how the program is managed suggest that the government adjusts enrolled acres in response to changing market conditions to achieve supply management objectives and due to budgetary reasons. The projected decrease of 12.8 million acres of CRP from 2007 to 2017 is estimated to decrease corn and soybean prices by 8.9% and 5.4%, while a hypothetical return to 2007 CRP acreage is estimated to increase corn and soybean prices by 12.0% and 7.3%.

Suggested Citation

  • Hendricks, Nathan P. & Er, Emrah, 2018. "Changes in cropland area in the United States and the role of CRP," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 15-23.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:75:y:2018:i:c:p:15-23
    DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.02.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919217305560
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.02.001?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Katherine Reichelderfer & William G. Boggess, 1988. "Government Decision Making and Program Performance: The Case of the Conservation Reserve Program," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 70(1), pages 1-11.
    2. Martin D.D. Evans & Dagfinn Rime, 2017. "Exchange rates, interest rates and the global carry trade," Working Paper 2017/14, Norges Bank.
    3. Martin D. D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Meese-Rogoff Redux: Micro-Based Exchange-Rate Forecasting," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 11, pages 457-475, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Kanlaya J. Barr & Bruce A. Babcock & Miguel A. Carriquiry & Andre M. Nassar & Leila Harfuch, 2011. "Agricultural Land Elasticities in the United States and Brazil," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 33(3), pages 449-462.
    5. Lubowski, Ruben N. & Plantinga, Andrew J. & Stavins, Robert N., 2006. "Land-use change and carbon sinks: Econometric estimation of the carbon sequestration supply function," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 135-152, March.
    6. Hendricks, Nathan P. & Sinnathamby, Sumathy & Douglas-Mankin, Kyle & Smith, Aaron & Sumner, Daniel A. & Earnhart, Dietrich H., 2014. "The environmental effects of crop price increases: Nitrogen losses in the U.S. Corn Belt," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 507-526.
    7. Ruben N. Lubowski & Andrew J. Plantinga & Robert N. Stavins, 2008. "What Drives Land-Use Change in the United States? A National Analysis of Landowner Decisions," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 84(4), pages 529-550.
    8. Lubowski, Ruben N. & Bucholtz, Shawn & Claassen, Roger & Roberts, Michael J. & Cooper, Joseph C. & Gueorguieva, Anna & Johansson, Robert C., 2006. "Environmental Effects Of Agricultural Land-Use Change: The Role Of Economics And Policy," Economic Research Report 33591, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    9. Sullivan, Patrick & Hellerstein, Daniel & Hansen, LeRoy T. & Johansson, Robert C. & Koenig, Steven R. & Lubowski, Ruben N. & McBride, William D. & McGranahan, David A. & Roberts, Michael J. & Vogel, S, 2004. "The Conservation Reserve Program: Economic Implications for Rural America," Agricultural Economic Reports 33987, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    10. Wright, Brian D & Williams, Jeffrey C, 1988. "The Incidence of Market-Stabilising Price Support Schemes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(393), pages 1183-1198, December.
    11. Coppess, Jonathan, 2017. "CBO Baseline and the Potential for Conflicts by Expanding CRP," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 32(4), December.
    12. Michael K. Adjemian & Aaron Smith, 2012. "Using USDA Forecasts to Estimate the Price Flexibility of Demand for Agricultural Commodities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(4), pages 978-995.
    13. JunJie Wu & Richard M. Adams & Catherine L. Kling & Katsuya Tanaka, 2004. "From Microlevel Decisions to Landscape Changes: An Assessment of Agricultural Conservation Policies," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(1), pages 26-41.
    14. Robert G. Chambers, 1992. "On the Design of Agricultural Policy Mechanisms," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(3), pages 646-654.
    15. Rausser, Gordon C., 1991. "Predatory versus productive government: the case of U.S. agricultural policies," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt21913950, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    16. Michael J. Roberts & Wolfram Schlenker, 2013. "Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Agricultural Commodities: Implications for the US Ethanol Mandate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2265-2295, October.
    17. Wright, Brian D, 1979. "The Effects of Ideal Production Stabilization: A Welfare Analysis Under Rational Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 1011-1033, October.
    18. Kouwenberg, Roy & Markiewicz, Agnieszka & Verhoeks, Ralph & Zwinkels, Remco C. J., 2017. "Model Uncertainty and Exchange Rate Forecasting," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(1), pages 341-363, February.
    19. Gordon C. Rausser, 1992. "Predatory versus Productive Government: The Case of U.S. Agricultural Policies," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 133-157, Summer.
    20. Millicent Chang & Xiaolin Qian & Jing Yu & Yvonne See, 2017. "Does director trading change the information environment?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 42(2), pages 205-229, May.
    21. Michael J. Roberts & Ruben N. Lubowski, 2007. "Enduring Impacts of Land Retirement Policies: Evidence from the Conservation Reserve Program," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 83(4), pages 516-538.
    22. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & Robert G. Chambers, 2000. "Stop-and-Go Agricultural Policies," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(1), pages 1-13.
    23. Christian Langpap & JunJie Wu, 2011. "Potential Environmental Impacts of Increased Reliance on Corn-Based Bioenergy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 49(2), pages 147-171, June.
    24. Barr, Kanlaya Jintanakul, 2011. "Agricultural Land Elasticities in the United States and Brazil," Staff General Research Papers Archive 34893, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    25. Andrew J. Plantinga, 2015. "Integrating Economic Land-Use and Biophysical Models," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 233-249, October.
    26. Hellerstein, Daniel M., 2017. "The US Conservation Reserve Program: The evolution of an enrollment mechanism," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 601-610.
    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. Nathan P. Hendricks, 2022. "Would farmers benefit from removing more land from production in the next farm bill?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(3), pages 1139-1157, September.
    2. Spawn-Lee, Seth A. & Lark, Tyler J. & Gibbs, Holly & Houghton, Richard A. & Kucharik, Christopher J & Malins, Chris & Pelton, Rylie & Robertson, G. Philip, 2021. "Refuting recent claims of an improved carbon intensity of U.S. corn ethanol," EcoEvoRxiv cxhz5, Center for Open Science.
    3. Wallander, Steven & Paul, Laura A. & Ferraro, Paul J. & Messer, Kent D. & Iovanna, Richard, 2023. "Informational nudges in conservation auctions: A field experiment with U.S. farmers," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    4. Thomas, Alban & Chakir, Raja, 2020. "Unintended consequences of environmental policies: the case of set-aside and agricultural intensification," TSE Working Papers 20-1066, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    5. Cornish, Brian & Miao, Ruiqing & Khanna, Madhu, 2020. "How will changes in Title II of the 2018 Farm Bill affect CRP Acreage?," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304304, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Lark, Tyler J., 2020. "Protecting our prairies: Research and policy actions for conserving America’s grasslands," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    7. Gabriel Medina & Catherine Isley & J. Arbuckle, 2021. "Promoting sustainable agriculture: Iowa stakeholders’ perspectives on the US Farm Bill conservation programs," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 173-194, January.
    8. Calafat-Marzal, Consuelo & Sánchez-García, Mercedes & Gallego-Salguero, Aurea & Piñeiro, Veronica, 2023. "Drivers of winegrowers' decision on land use abandonment based on exploratory spatial data analysis and multilevel models," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    9. Rosenberg, Andrew B. & Pratt, Bryan & Arnold, David, 2022. "Land Use Impacts of the Conservation Reserve Program: An Analysis of Rejected CRP Offers," 2022 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting (Virtual), January 7-9, 2022 316533, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Yuanming Xie & Zemeng Ma & Mingjie Fang & Weiguo Liu & Feiyan Yu & Jiajing Tian & Shuoxin Zhang & Yan Yan, 2023. "Analysis of Net Primary Productivity of Retired Farmlands in the Grain-for-Green Project in China from 2011 to 2020," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-16, May.
    11. Jennifer Ifft & Deepak Rajagopal & Ryan Weldzuis, 2019. "Ethanol Plant Location and Land Use: A Case Study of CRP and the Ethanol Mandate," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 37-55, March.
    12. Mykel R. Taylor & Nathan P. Hendricks & Gabriel S. Sampson & Dillon Garr, 2021. "The Opportunity Cost of the Conservation Reserve Program: A Kansas Land Example," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(2), pages 849-865, June.
    13. Rosenberg, Andrew B. & Pratt, Bryan & Arnold, David, 2022. "Land Use Impacts of the Conservation Reserve Program: An Analysis of Rejected CRP Offers," 2023 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 6-8, 2023, New Orleans, Louisiana 316533, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Thapa, Bhawna & Chapagain, Binod P. & McMurry, Scott T. & Smith, Loren M. & Joshi, Omkar, 2024. "Understanding landowner participation in the Conservation Reserve Program in the U.S. High Plains region," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    15. Lim, Siew & Wachenheim, Cheryl, 2022. "Predicted enrollment in alternative attribute Conservation Reserve Program contracts," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    16. Brian Cornish & Ruiqing Miao & Madhu Khanna, 2022. "Impact of changes in Title II of the 2018 Farm Bill on the acreage and environmental benefits of Conservation Reserve Program," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(2), pages 1100-1122, June.
    17. Rosenberg, Andrew B. & Pratt, Bryan & Arnold, David & Williams, Ryan, 2024. "Land Use of Rejected, Enrolled, and Expiring Fields in the Conservation Reserve Program," Economic Information Bulletin 344828, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

    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. Nicholas J. Pates & Nathan P. Hendricks, 2021. "Fields from Afar: Evidence of Heterogeneity in United States Corn Rotational Response from Remote Sensing Data," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(5), pages 1759-1782, October.
    2. Nathan P. Hendricks, 2022. "Would farmers benefit from removing more land from production in the next farm bill?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(3), pages 1139-1157, September.
    3. Ji, Yongjie & Rabotyagov, Sergey & Kling, Catherine L., 2014. "Crop Choice and Rotational Effects: A Dynamic Model of Land Use in Iowa in Recent Years," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170366, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Ji, Yongjie & Rabotyagov, sergey & Valcu-Lisman, Adriana, 2015. "Estimating Adoption of Cover Crops Using Preferences Revealed by a Dynamic Crop Choice Model," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205799, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Md Zabid Iqbal & Bruce A. Babcock, 2018. "Global growing‐area elasticities of key agricultural crops estimated using dynamic heterogeneous panel methods," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(6), pages 681-690, November.
    6. Sung, Jae-hoon & Miranowski, John A., 2016. "Information technologies and field-level chemical use for corn production," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235858, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Austin, K.G. & Jones, J.P.H. & Clark, C.M., 2022. "A review of domestic land use change attributable to U.S. biofuel policy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    8. Oladipo S. Obembe & Nathan P. Hendricks, 2022. "Marginal cost of carbon sequestration through forest afforestation of agricultural land in the southeastern United States," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 53(S1), pages 59-73, November.
    9. Hendricks, Nathan P. & Sinnathamby, Sumathy & Douglas-Mankin, Kyle & Smith, Aaron & Sumner, Daniel A. & Earnhart, Dietrich H., 2014. "The environmental effects of crop price increases: Nitrogen losses in the U.S. Corn Belt," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 507-526.
    10. Jennifer M. Alix-Garcia & Elizabeth N. Shapiro & Katharine R. E. Sims, 2012. "Forest Conservation and Slippage: Evidence from Mexico’s National Payments for Ecosystem Services Program," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 88(4), pages 613-638.
    11. Hyunseok Kim & GianCarlo Moschini, 2018. "The Dynamics of Supply: U.S. Corn and Soybeans in the Biofuel Era," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 94(4), pages 593-613.
    12. Sung, Jae-hoon & Miranowski, John A., 2015. "Adaptive Behavior of U.S. Farms to Climate and Risk," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205787, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Hoekman, S. Kent & Broch, Amber, 2018. "Environmental implications of higher ethanol production and use in the U.S.: A literature review. Part II – Biodiversity, land use change, GHG emissions, and sustainability," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P2), pages 3159-3177.
    14. Claassen, Roger & Carriazo, Fernando & Cooper, Joseph C. & Hellerstein, Daniel & Ueda, Kohei, 2011. "Grassland to Cropland Conversion in the Northern Plains: The Role of Crop Insurance, Commodity, and Disaster Programs," Economic Research Report 262239, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    15. Mykel R. Taylor & Nathan P. Hendricks & Gabriel S. Sampson & Dillon Garr, 2021. "The Opportunity Cost of the Conservation Reserve Program: A Kansas Land Example," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(2), pages 849-865, June.
    16. David A. Fleming, 2014. "Slippage effects of land-based policies: Evaluating the Conservation Reserve Program using satellite imagery," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93, pages 167-178, November.
    17. Hendricks, Nathan P. & Smith, Aaron D., 2012. "Comparing the Bias of Dynamic Panel Estimators in Multilevel Panels: Individual versus Grouped Data," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124548, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Roger Claassen & Christian Langpap & JunJie Wu, 2017. "Impacts of Federal Crop Insurance on Land Use and Environmental Quality," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(3), pages 592-613.
    19. Villoria, Nelson B. & Liu, Jing, 2018. "Using spatially explicit data to improve our understanding of land supply responses: An application to the cropland effects of global sustainable irrigation in the Americas," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 411-419.
    20. Scott, Paul, 2014. "Dynamic Discrete Choice Estimation of Agricultural Land Use," TSE Working Papers 14-526, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).

    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:eee:jfpoli:v:75:y:2018:i:c:p:15-23. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol .

    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.