Selected government policies for encouraging soil conservation on Ontario cash-cropping farms

ABSTRACT:

As well as causing on-farm costs, land degradation typically causes considerable off-farm costs through sedimentation and pollution of downstream watercourses. In many cases, farmers who voluntarily adopt conservation techniques find that the costs exceed the benefits at the farm level, even though overall benefits to society are generally greater than the costs. Public policies, in the form of regulation or taxation of farmers or subsidies to farmers, may be called upon to encourage more farmers to adopt conservation measures. Although effective in curtailing land degradation, both regulatory limits to soil erosion and taxation of eroded soil would impose significant financial hardships on many farmers. Subsidizing the cost of conservation tillage equipment or the cost of producing conservation crops such as alfalfa would be more appealing for farmers financially and