Conservation and Community: The Local Economic Impacts of the Conservation Reserve Program

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the nation’s largest working-lands conservation program, retires environmentally sensitive cropland in exchange for rental payments. While CRP’s ecological benefits are well documented, its socioeconomic effects on rural communities are less understood, though they are central to ongoing policy debates regarding the program’s future. This report provides a comprehensive national assessment of CRP’s impacts on property values over the period 2012–2022, and on rural business activity, employment, and migration from 2001 to 2022. The analysis yields several key insights.CRP generates modest but measurable gains in nearby residential property values. Using a repeat-sales hedonic framework and a data set of more than 12 million transactions, we find that increases in CRP enrollment near a home raise sale prices. A 10-hectare increase in CRP land within 1 km increases property values by about 0.5–0.7 percent. Tree-cover CRP generates the greatest gains, at roughly 2 percent for the same increment, likely reflecting salient aesthetic improvements, wildlife habitat restoration, and enhanced recreational amenities. Based on current CRP enrollments, these localized amenity gains add an estimated $3 billion to residential real estate nationwide, or roughly $60 million annually.CRP enrollment supports rural economic activity, particularly in agricultural and local service industries. Despite longstanding concerns that retiring cropland weakens rural economies, our analysis at the industry, county, and year levels finds that CRP is associated with small but consistently positive increases in rural employment and business activity. A 1,000-acre increase in county CRP enrollment raises rural employment by roughly 0.06 percent per year over the first three years, with gains tapering off by year five. On average, this implies an additional 8 rural jobs per 1,000 acres enrolled. Establishment counts show similar patterns. Effects are strongest within agriculture and closely related industries, but spillovers appear in retail, recreation, hospitality, and other local non-tradable sectors. These effects could be explained by stabilized farm income, land management labor needs, and amenity-driven recreation spending.CRP does not contribute to sustained rural depopulation. Using IRS county-level migration data, we find no evidence that CRP accelerates out-migration or long-term population loss. CRP enrollment is associated with a small, short-run reduction in net in-migration (less than one basis point), but this effect reverses within three years. Over a five-year period, the program’s net effect on migration is essentially zero. These results counter the perception that CRP exacerbates rural decline.Overall, the findings indicate that the CRP has supported rural communities while delivering substantial environmental benefits. In recent years, the program’s impacts on property values, local employment, and sectoral activity have been positive but moderate, and concerns about depopulation linked to land retirement are not supported by empirical evidence. From a policy perspective, the results suggest that the CRP can advance conservation objectives without harming rural economies. It is important to recognize that CRP spending primarily represents transfer payments to landowners, meaning that the observed external benefits to local communities constitute net social gains. As policymakers debate whether to pare down or strengthen the program, these results underscore the importance of considering its broader socioeconomic implications. They also highlight opportunities to align CRP design more closely with rural development goals. In particular, while tree cover tends to be more costly to establish and maintain than other cover types, it generates the most pronounced positive effects in both property and labor markets, suggesting that its relative benefits may justify its higher costs.