ABSTRACT:
This article examines the value-added of integrating onsite, farm-level environmental data with farm enterprise, resource, and household economic data when evaluating production-practice decisions and conservation program participation. Conservation practice acreage allocation and erosion plan adoption models are estimated to account for both program participation and land heterogeneity. We test whether inferences about operator behavior and conservation practices differ when aggregated environmental data is used instead of onsite information. Inference about producer behavior with respect to acres allocated to conservation structures and the probability of adopting an erosion plan differs significantly, depending on the resolution of the environmental variables used in the models. Detailed onsite information about the physical environment, management practices, and the farm household provides the analyst with a means to integrate more completely landscape heterogeneity and farm diversity within the design, implementation, and evaluation of conservation programs, thereby improving their overall cost effectiveness.
Footnotes
Dayton Lambert is an assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee, Department of Agricultural Economics in Knoxville, Tennessee. Glemm D. Schaible Rob Johnsson, and UPtal Vasavada are agricultural economists in the Resource and Rural Economics Division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service in Washington, D.C.
- Copyright 2007 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society