Excerpt
THE Conservation Title of the 1985 Food Security Act has been called the most significant initiative in soil conservation over the past three decades. In reality, the Conservation Title constitutes only a beachhead. Long-term success in combating soil and water degradation depends upon a comprehensive educational effort, substantial structural changes in soil and water conservation institutions, and continued public and private support.
Educational efforts
The Conservation Title contains a number of novel concepts: highly erodible land, swampbuster, sodbuster, and conservation compliance. These provisions must be understood by landowners and operators before they can be implemented. Similarly, the law establishes relationships between farmers and federal agencies. Participation in the Conservation Reserve Program depends upon a novel bidding process. Conservation compliance, sodbuster, and swampbuster will prevent some farmers from participating in U.S. Department of Agriculture commodity programs.
To understand and make use of these provisions, farmers need far more economic expertise because decisions made under these provisions generally will have more lasting consequences than has been true in the past. Likewise, the conservation provisions created new information and education needs for administrators, who have had little experience with exclusionary programs.
Agency information efforts inform landowners and …
Footnotes
Richard L. Farnsworth is an assistant professor and John B. Braden is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Illinois, 305 Mumford Hall, Urbana, 61801. This article is based on a paper presented originally at the spring 1987 meeting of the NCR-111 Committee on Natural Resource Policy in St. Louis, Missouri.
- Copyright 1988 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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