ABSTRACT:
Two contingent valuation surveys including 770 mail surveys and 157 personal interviews were conducted in ten Corn Belt counties to estimate potential enrollment of farmed wetlands in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and in the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) and to elicit farmers' and farmland owners' attitudes toward Swampbuster. Weighted, piecewise-linear regression was used to obtain estimated enrollments from the mail survey data. Results from the two surveys indicate that enrollment of farmed wetlands in the CRP climbs from 2-8% of eligible acreage at an annual rental rate of $90lac/yr to 52-64% at $140lac/yr. Enrollment reaches 81-83% at rental rates of $400lac/yr. For the WRP, the two surveys are in less agreement. According to the mail survey, enrollments climb from 4% of eligible acreage at $500lac for a 30-year easement to 26% at $2,500lac. Enrollments climb more rapidly at higher easement rates reaching 78% enrollment at $4,000lac. Results from personal interviews, however, indicate much lower enrollment rates of less than 2% of eligible aceage at $1,700lac climbing to 20% at $2,500lac. Beyond financial considerations, dealing with problems of altering drainage facilities is a primary barrier to enrollment of farmed wetlands in the WRP.
Footnotes
Christopher L. Lant is with the Department of Geography, Steven E. Kraft is with the Department of Agribusiness Economics, and Keith R. Gillman is with the Department of Geography, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Carbondale 62901-4514. The authors thank the district officers and staff at the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service and the Soil Conservation Service offices in the 10 counties studied for their cooperation in administering the surveys. We also thank the 157 farmers and farmland owners who cooperated with us. The work was supported in part by funds provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior as authorized under the Water Resources Research Act of 1984. This report does not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the U.S. Department of the Interior, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute their endorsement by the U.S. government. This work was also supported in part by the Illinois Groundivater Consortium.
- Copyright 1995 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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