Periodic corrections to agricultural land values provide opportunity for conservation

Excerpt

Private landowners manage over 75% of the land in the United States. More than 90% of each state's area in the Midwest and Great Plains is owned privately (Powell 2012). Thus, the decisions made on private lands may serve as major sources of change in farmed landscapes and ecosystems.

Federal conservation programs, such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), can substantially affect landscapes. In 2013, 2% of the surface area of Nebraska and 4.5% of Iowa was protected through enrollment in CRP (USDA 2014a). However, natural resource planners who work to conserve soil, water, and wildlife on private lands are faced with the complex task of finding willing landowners to enroll in the portfolio of federal conservation programs. A variety of factors motivate landowner decisions (Quinn and Burbach 2008), but economic considerations are usually a clear driver (Cary and Wilkinson 1997).

High prices paid for commodities have recently competed with conservation interests (Powell 2012). For example, acres enrolled in CRP declined by 18% during 2007 to 2013 in the United States. Four midwestern states—Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri—saw an average decline of acres in CRP of 12%. Four states in the northern Great Plains—Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota—had…