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OCR for page 253
9
New Cropland in the 1982 NRI:
Implications for Resource Policy
Clayton Al Ogg
Comparing the 1982 National Resources Inventory (NRI)
with the smaller inventory conducted 5 years earlier
shows no startling land use or management changes.
Reduced tillage increased, as expected, while a 2.7
percent annual rate of increase in cropland in the
mid-1970s was reduced by the pressure of today's lower
prices to about 1 percent. Since much knowledge gained
from the 1977 NRI was simply reconfirmed in 1982, the
more significant insights pertain to new cropland
conversions discovered through the recent NRI. This new
cropland exemplifies erodibility and other character-
istics of soils at the margin of production.
Several U.S. commodity and trade policies influence
conversion of these erodible soils and soils with other
problems identified in the NRI. For example, commodity
price support programs administered by the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) contain an evolving mixture of
subsidies, which promote crop production and exports, and
land retirement programs, which support prices by reducing
crop acreage. Conversion of land to crop uses is affected
by these policy choices, as well as by proposed sodbuster
and conservation reserve legislation designed to reduce
any program-related stimulus to misuse erodible land.
The large commodity program outlays relative to conserva-
tion cost sharing have focused public attention on farm
policy options that affect land conversions.
The 1982 NRI reports both the current use of fields
and that of the preceding 3 years. It indicates that the
acres cropped in 1982 but not earlier contain a far
larger proportion of erodible land than the acres already
in production. This paper looks at the new acreage for
each major program crop and analyzes erodibility and
other physical soil problems, citing earlier estimates of
253
OCR for page 254
254
yields and economic factors affecting their use. NRI
data are used to consider relationships between soil
erosion and current price supports. The paper also
demonstrates the economic importance of erodible land at
the margin of production and improves on earlier
estimates of the erosion-related costs of using this
land. It ends with an analysis of policies on land
conversions and suggestions on new approaches to policy
research using this new and powerful information.
EMERGENCE OF ERODIBLE LAND USE AS A FARM POLICY ISSUE
Conservation has had a role in farm programs for
several decades, although not a sharply defined one.
Terms like "conservation reserve," "soil bank," and
"conservation use acres" suggested some conservation
purpose for acreage idled by various price support
programs. Yet, until a USDA study in 1984 (USDA, 1984),
it was apparently assumed either that farmers would
select erodible land for their program acres or that it
did not matter enough to be an issue. Cost-sharing
programs for applying conservation practices similarly
treated erosion as if it were ubiquitous (USDA, 1980).
The 1977 NRI first demonstrated the concentration of
erosion problems on a small portion of the nation's
cropland. Heimlich and Bills (1984) found only 23
percent of cropland needing additional treatment to
reduce sheet and rill erosion. Meanwhile, about a third
of the cropland was so disinclined toward sheet and rill
erosion as to never need treatment. According to
Heimlich and Bills (1984), 8 percent of cropland is so
highly erodible that it cannot be continuously cropped
without experiencing erosion rates in excess of the 5
tons/acre/year considered allowable. The 1982 NRI gives
little reason to alter these figures.
Broad public concern about erosion-related productivity
losses and water quality damage evolved into concern
focused especially on the small portion of the land that
would experience high erosion rates (USDA, 1980). In
addition, a dramatic increase in farm exports and in
cropland in the 1970s drew attention to erodible land
being converted to crop uses. One study suggested that
much of the land suited for conversion was going to be
more erodible than existing cropland (Cory and Timmons,
1982). The 1982 NRI can now more authoritatively
distinguish erosion and other soil problems on land that
is actually being planted in crops in the United States.
OCR for page 255
25S
POLICIES AFFECTING ERODIBLE AND
MARGINAL LAND CONVERS ION TO CROP USES
Farm policies inevitably influence land conversion to
crop uses because they subsidize production and support
prices. Farmers Home Administration loans and disaster
relief have constituted the major direct subsidies to
agriculture. Price supports, meanwhile, consist of
required acreage set-asides, paid crop diversions, and
grain storage programs.
Since price support programs ultimately rely on acreage
reductions to diminish supply and raise prices, their
initial impact is to reduce the use of some land that is
currently used to raise program crops. As prices go up,
however, new land is brought into production, a phenomenon
referred to as "slippage." The net program effect in the
short run is a reduction of erosion on the idled acres,
minus any change from erosion on land brought into
cultivation.
Concern that programs may be having a negative overall
effect on soil erosion resulted in legislative initiatives
to deny program benefits to farmers plowing new fragile
or highly erodible soils. Other programs, including a
conservation reserve that was tested in the 1984 program,
are meant to attract more erodible land into the acreage
reduction programs. These worries about the net erosion
effects of farm programs underscore the need for greater
knowledge about changes in land use in response to
program subsidies.
CROPS AND SOIL GROUPINGS IN THE ANALYSIS
Since the 1982 NRI identifies land uses in the 3 years
before the sample points were visited, land newly con-
verted to crop uses is easily identified. (The 1982
points that had been sampled in 1977 could also be
examined, but definitional changes make that difficult.
Also, 1982 is a much larger sample.) There were 10.6
million newly cropped acres in the sample years (mainly
1981 and 1982), mostly in corn, wheat, and soybeans; over
70 percent of these acres were plowed in the previous 2
years as well. To analyze this new cropland, the acreage
was placed in six land groups used in a recent study of
acreage reduction programs (Ogg et al., 1984).
The land groups were selected to reflect the current
policy emphasis on the use of marginal (less productive)
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256
TABLE 1 Land Groups and Yields
Land Capability Class
System (LCCS)a or
Group
( Bushels/Acre )
Average Land
Corn Yield
Eros ion Des ignation
1 I
2 IIw, IIs, IIc, IIIw,
IIIc, IVw
IVs, IVc, and V
3 IIe, IIIe, and IVe;
RKLS under 50b
4 IIe and IIIe; RKLS over 50
5 IVe; RKLS over 50
6 VI, VI I, and VI I I
We ighted averag e
109
67
97
85
79
37
102
aUnder the LCCS designations, Roman numerals I-VIII
designate severity of the problem for crop uses; sub-
scripts w, s, c, and e indicate whether the problem is
due
to wetness, stoniness, climate, or erodibility.
bAn RKLS of 50 implies an erosion rate of about 15
tons/acre/year under average management.
SOURCE: Ogg et al. (1984).
and highly erodible land. Highly erodible land has not
been much affected by conservation programs because of
the high cost of adequate treatment. Yet, the current
cross-compliance and sodbuster regulatory options would
tend to affect this highly erodible land more than land
with moderate erosion problems.
Soils were grouped by using erosion potential data
from the NRI as well as the Land Capability Class System
(LCCS) (see Table 1). Soils with few limitations for
crop use are in group 1, the most productive land. LCCS
data are especially useful for identifying wetness
(subclass w), stoniness (s), and climatic limitations (c)
for crop uses; soils with these problems were placed in
group 2. Productive soils with moderate erosion problems
were in group 3, while groups 4 and 5 contain most (71
percent) of the land Heimlich and Bills (1984) described
OCR for page 257
257
as so highly erodible as to be difficult to treat
adequately if in crops other than hay. Group 6 includes
a small area of unproductive soils identified by the Soil
Conservation Service (SCS) as unsuitable for crop uses,
which actually accounts for less than 1 percent of U.S.
crop production other than hay.
These six land groups provide an excellent basis for
analyzing land conversion to cropland: Earlier estimates
of average yields and other economic information that
influence land conversion decisions can be drawn on, and
four of the groups contain either erodible or lower-
yielding soils that are to be expected at the margin of
production.
The analysis of acreage reduction programs found that
the erodible groups 4 and 5 were not particularly favored
by farmers interested in placing their land in current
land retirement programs (Ogg et al., 1984). A USDA
study (1984) of the 1983 program supported the conclusion
that land in acreage reductions is fairly representive of
land in crops. However, as mentioned earlier, the land
converted to crop use in response to price supports and
subsidies was expected to be far more erodible than that
idled by programs.
THE NEW CROPLAND
As noted earlier, only 8 percent of U.S. cropland was
highly erodible in 1977. However, far more than 8 percent
of the new cropland in 1982 in all major crops fell in
this category of high erodibility. For example, looking
at highly erodible land across all land groups in the 1982
NRI, 30 percent of new corn acres were highly erodible,
with 23 percent in relatively productive groups 4 and 5
in Table 2. Average erosion rates for all new cropland
were about 1.4 times the national average rate for
cropland.
About another 15 percent of cropland in 1977 needed
treatment to reduce erosion, but it was classified as
fully treatable with conservation practices (Heimlich and
Bills, 1984). For all the newly cropped acres in 1982,
only 12 percent was in this category of needing treatment,
mainly (67 percent) in group 3. The highly erodible
groups 4 and 5 thus represent a relatively large portion
of the erosion on new cropland.
That the highly erosive land coming into production is
in relatively productive groups 4 and 5 emphasizes the
OCR for page 258
258
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importance of protecting this land when it is not par-
ticularly needed to meet food and fiber demands. Research
is still measuring the economic significance of both
onsite and offsite damage from highly erodible versus
less erodible soils, but the highly erodible soils do
account for 46 million tons--70 percent--of the new
cropland's sheet and rill erosion. This is nearly twice
the proportion of erosion from all cropland that is
Provided by highly erodible land.
If market conditions
improve, and if the improvement causes sodbusting to
increase, highly erodible land groups can be expected to
be the source of an increasing share of the sediment
entering lakes and streams.
NEW ACRES OF PROGRAM CROPS
New erosion problems are particularly evident for the
crops most affected by feedgrain programs. About 2.5
times more of the recently converted crop acres than of
all crops in 1977 were highly erodible, but for new corn
and soybean acres the equivalent figure was 3.8. Because
new corn and soybean acres contain so much erodible land,
program decisions for feedgrains could perhaps influence
use of substantial acreages of erodible land.
Soils with other physical limitations, such as wetness,
figure even more heavily in the land conversion process.
The less-productive group 2 accounts for 47 percent of
the new soybean land (see Table 2). Still, soils with
severe erosion problems expand their share of corn and
soybean crop acreage more than other problem soils do.
Since the erosion potential data do not include poten-
tial for wind erosion, the erodible land groups in these
tables account for less of the erodible wheat acres than
was the case for other crops. Even with wind erosion,
wheat is one of the crops least susceptible to erosion.
A given wheat price support outlay is, therefore, less
likely than a feedgrain program to damage nonrenewable
resources, even though much of the early support for
sodbusting legislation originated in wheat states.
Similarly, groups 4 and 5, with high potential for
sheet and rill erosion, are hardly relevant in evaluating
program impacts on cotton production because cotton
suffers mainly from wind erosion. It is worth noting,
however, that 22 percent of new cotton is grown on land
group 6. The 22 tons/acre/year combined water and wind
erosion rates suggest erosion damage is occurring on the
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260
TABLE 3 Distribution of New Cropland and of Least
Profitable Cropland (25 Million Acres) by Land Group
Least Profitable
Land GroupNew CroplandaCroplandb
1
3
3
23437
33537
41315
565
6
9
a"New" acres are those in crops in 1982 that were not
in crop production in 1979.
bSee Webb et al. (1984)
SOURCE: 1982 NRI.
.
new cotton acres. An earlier study (Ogg r 1985) found, in
fact r that disaster programs were an incentive to bring 2
million new acres of cotton into the Dust Bowl region
during the 1970s.
PRICE SUPPORTS AND PROBLEMS WITH THE NEW CROPLAND
Yet erosion is not the only problem created by land
conversions. Table 1 shows a version of the Iowa State
Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD)
model's estimates of yields on each land group. Along
with being erodible, the land groups with the lowest
yields in Table 1 account for much of the new cropland.
In fact, the distribution of cropland among the six
groups parallels the distribution of the least profitable
land currently in production (see Table 3), identified in
a study using a version of the CARD model (Ogg et. al,
1984). Groups 2 and 6 account for considerably more of
newly cropped acreage than of current acreage, while the
productive land group 1 accounts for very few of the new
cropped acres.
Price support statutes aim to prevent new plowing
during crop surpluses because it adds to surpluses and to
OCR for page 261
261
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262
the cost of the supports. Erosion and low profitability
greatly add to these social costs of land conversions, as
additions to crop surpluses mainly come from either
erodible or less profitable land.
Short-Term Effects of Farm Subsidies
on Land Conversions and Soil Erosion
Program rules limiting production to base averages
thus discourage both new plowing and soil erosion in the
short term. These rules also use various subsidies to
persuade farmers to place land in set-asides and crop
diversions, reducing erosion on the idled acres.
However, the Conservation Use Acres data indicate
these programs in 1983 reduced erosion just 0.9
tons/acre/year on wheat acres, 3.7 tons/acre/year on
feedgrain acres, and 1.8 tons/acre/year for all crops.
Many idle acres were not very erodible or if they were
erodible, adequate cover was not established. To add to
the erosion and surplus problems, programs that raise
prices cause some land to be moved into crops from hay or
pasture even on farms not participating in the program.
New corn acres eroded at 9.4 tons/acre/year (see Table
4), which is 1.23 times the 1977 rate for all corn
acres. These figures shed some light on the erosion due
to program-induced land use changes.
A study by Ericksen and Collins (1985) found that
every 10 acres idled by farm programs reduced crop
production only 5 or 6 acres. The 1983 acreage reduction
program idled 31.7 million corn acres from the base
acreage and 29.3 million wheat acres, but the reduction
in actual cropped acres was only 21.3 million and 20.0
million acres, respectively.
Reductions in summer fallow
_
and in soybean acreages make up much of the difference.
Yet, among the 19.7 million acres that shifted into
corn and wheat in 1983 were 1.0 million acres that moved
out of hay production and probably a larger area that
shifted from pasture, although that figure may never be
known with precision. The net effect of any program in
the short run must include any new erosion that results
on the acres converted to crops. According to the
new-cropland data, the land shifted from pasture erodes
at about 8.3 tons/acre/year (see Table 4) in crops,
versus about 1 ton/acre/year when it was in pasture.
Assuming the converted hayland has erosion characteristics
similar to the new cropland, hay alone would offset 7.3
million tons of erosion of the roughly 102-million-ton
program savings for these two crops in 1983.
OCR for page 263
263
Including pasture conversions would raise the 7.3
million near-term estimate for new erosion due to
program-related land conversions that year. Although
lack of reliable data on decreases in pastureland in 1983
makes it difficult to estimate accurately all the
short-term erosion and production impacts of the large
1983 acreage reduction, unpublished estimates suggest
modest increases in the rate of pastureland conversion
that year.
Long-Term Effects of Farm Programs
Base acreages cannot greatly limit new plowing if
programs are repeated for several years. Much of the
10.6 million new cropped acres from 1979 to 1982 is
therefore somewhat influenced by price supports. Farmers
plow up new land partly in response to supported prices
or to expand their base acreages, which are the basis for
receiving program benefits. Wheat bases, alone, expanded
from 45 million acres in 1970 to 91 million acres in 1984
(Ericksen and Collins, 1985).
However, price fluctuations, pressure from banks, and
land speculation are also associated with these land
conversions (Huszar and Young, 1984). Research has yet
to determine how much of the new cropland is plowed to
reap program-related benefits versus other reasons.
Smaller program changes, such as the 13 million wheat
and feedgrain acres set aside in 1979 and the 9.1 million
acres set aside in 1982, do not appear to disrupt the
pace of conversion from pasture to cropland. For example,
new cropland in wheat and other crops occurred at almost
equal increments each year for which data are available.
Programs stabilizing or raising farm prices and income
obviously influence the rate of land conversion in the
long run much more than during the year a program feature
is introduced.
Productivity Damage on Land
at the Margin of Production
A paper by Doering et al. (1983) for the first time
estimated the erosion damage from production of program
crops and attempted to relate that damage to farm sub-
sidies. Their study conservatively estimated that an
acre-inch of soil is worth about $60 and that pro
OCR for page 264
264
ductivity losses due to erosion cost 2¢/bushel of wheat
and 3/bushel of corn. They also noted that new
cropland, producing for exports, is surely far more
erodible and might suffer several times this rate of
damage.
Work is being done to improve these average damage
estimates as well as to extend this type of analysis by
determining how many additional acres are farmed in
response to program subsidies. In the meantime, the
marginal erosion damage on new cropland can be suggested
much more accurately. Since erosion rates on the corn
acres at the margin of production are 1.23 times the
rates on all corn acres, the per bushel cost estimate of
3¢ can be raised to 3.7/bushel. And the cost estimate
for erosion on new wheat acres becomes 2.5¢/bushel.
However, a much larger share of the new cropland
erosion comes from highly erodible soils. Thus, there is
a need both to improve average damage estimates and to
determine separate damage estimates for more erodible
soils, which may lose more per ton than soils that are
less erodible. Analyzing yield losses from erosion on
each of the six land groups described here, for example,
would shed light on the economic significance of policy
options affecting land conversions. The new NRI data
suggest several areas to focus new research and improve
on past efforts.
Water Quality Damage from Land Conversions
Although 70 percent of the erosion from new crop acres
occurred on highly erodible land, according to 1982 NRI
data, this land was dispersed across nearly all the major
producing regions, which are listed in Table 5. Farm
policy choices affecting conversions of erodible land are
therefore of national interest from a water quality
standpoint.
Those deciding farm policy can only consider water
damage from sediment and related nutrients in the most
aggregate terms. Nonetheless, the concentration of
sediment and nutrient losses on highly erodible land
proved very important to eutrophication problems in a
Pennsylvania reservoir (Ogg et al., 1983). And a recent
study (Ogg and Pionke, 1986) finds that these Pennsylvania
results are due to phosphorus adsorption relationships
that have wide applicability.
Phosphorus losses are mainly adsorbed to sediment
OCR for page 265
265
TABLE 5 New Cropland Acreage Between 1979 and
1982, By Producing Region
. _ .
Producing Region
Acres
(Millions)a
Appalachian
Corn Belt
Delta
Lake
Mountain
Northeast
Northern Plains
Pacific
Southeast
Southern Plains
Total
1.205
2.169
0.992
0.614
1.381
0.382
1.548
0.699
0.908
1.178
11.076
aIncludes some land that shifted in and sub-
sequently out of crop uses.
SOURCE: 1982 NRI.
particles in the case of the highly erodible fields,
while phosphorus moves off less erodible fields in its
dissolved form. These dissolved phosphorus losses from
less erodible soils are not much affected as acres are
converted to crops. In addition, pasture or forest uses
lower the soil's fertility status. The 70 percent figure
for sediment originating from the highly erosive new
cropland acres considerably understates, then, the share
of phosphorus damage associated with conversions of
highly erodible land.
PREVENTING SODBUSTING DURING PRICE SUPPORTS
Since land conversion appears to be a long-term
investment decision, provisions that prevent farmers from
expanding crop acreages during a particular price support
year may not address this process. Meanwhile, the high
proportion of the new cropland in the erodible and
relatively productive land groups 4 and 5 suggests that
OCR for page 266
266
sodbuster legislation that includes productive land would
help prevent resource problems and new production during
price suppor t programs .
The immediate social costs of preventing new production
through sanctions on sodbusting are apparently lower than
idling acres already in production. As Table 3 indicates,
the new cropland is among the least productive now in
production, containing virtually no acreage in the land
group having the highest yields and substantial acreage
in groups with yields one-third to two-thirds below aver-
age. The average corn yield on new cropland (estimated
by weighting acres in Table 4 by the yields in Table 1)
is only 78 bushels--about 23 percent below the average on
all cropland. Also, much of the new cropland came from
regions like the Southeast (see Table 5), where yields in
each land group are below the national average yield for
that group. Thus, 23 percent is a conservative estimate
of this yield difference.
The plowing costs and other expenses associated with
plowing less productive new land therefore adds to the
social cost of farm programs to the extent that production
shifts from idled program acres to the new cropland acres.
According to Watts et al. (1983) it costs at least
$134/acre to convert rangeland to crops in Montana.
Sodbusting costs less than that in some states, but it
represents a substantial expenditure. Erosion, water
quality damage, low profitability, plowing costs, and
additions to crop surpluses all point to the importance
of rules that reduce incentives for sodbusting.
OTHER OPTIONS THAT REDUCE CONVERS ION OF
MARGINAL OR ERODIBLE SOILS TO CROP USES
In the Appalachian, Delta, Northeast, and Southeast
reunions, commodity program participation is lower than in
the areas that produce wheat and feedgrains. However,
credit subsidies are concentrated in the Southeast, so
credit policy can be used to discourage conversions of
erodible land in these regions (Ogg, 1985). In the rest
of the United States, commodity program benefits carry
much more weight.
Although sodbuster legislation and conservation
reserves affect these land conversions most directly, a
bid system used to retire land in 1983 is also relevant.
The bid system primarily reduces the farm program outlays
by encouraging rental bids from farmers based on the
earnings of each piece of land. Bidding would thus
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reduce the windfalls to owners of less profitable,
recently converted cropland (see Table 3). These
windfalls are often very large when acreage reduction
programs include 50 to 90 percent of western wheat
farmers, as they presently do. Deficiency payments and
crop diversion payments now offer all program participants
for each bushel of their production capacity the amount
that the more Profitable farmers in the Country are
earning. Those who produce at tow or negative profits
capture the largest windfall.
Although a number of factors listed here contribute to
the land conversions (Huszar and Young, 1984), one
financial incentive for farmers, bankers, and speculators
is ultimately to add to the current or future owner's
base acreages and capture the windfall described above.
The bid system reduces this windfall, encouraging each
farmer to idle land for what it is worth. Short of
freezing the base acreage, there may be no more effective
way to reduce the incentive to expand base acreages.
Research needs, then, to specifically address program
incentives, such as the bid system, to prevent base
acreages from expanding onto less productive soils. The
NRI and some of the modeling tools discussed in this
volume will play a role. Such analyses are as relevant
to commodity policy as they are to resource concerns.
The 1982 set-aside was barely able to offset land
conversions of the previous 3 years.
Fundamental research regarding onsite and offsite
erosion damage on new cropland is also needed, as others
have indicated. (See papers by Benbrook et al., 1984;
Christensen, this volume; and Walker and Young, this
volume.)
CONCLUS IONS
Land at the margin of production, recently converted
to crop uses, experiences lower yields and more erosion
than land currently in crops. Much of the new cropland
is from the most erodible land groups. Although it also
has lower yields on the average, land with wetness and
other problems account for the lowest yields, as the
erodible land among the new acres comes from fairly
productive land groups.
When crop surpluses exist, farm programs attempt to
discourage participants from planting new acres in the
program crops because the additional cropland undermines
the ability to control surpluses. The analysis in this
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paper suggests that the new plowing, which takes place
partly in response to price supports, has the additional
undesirable effect of moving the country toward a less
efficient agriculture and adding to the nation's water
pollution problems.
The immediate economic inefficiencies of plowing new
cropland include conversion costs and a shift toward less
productive land than that currently in use. This short-
term social cost is in addition to erosion damage, which
exceeds not only similar damages on land currently in
production but also erosion on acres idled by farm
programs (USDA, 1984).
These findings suggest that land conversions due to
farm policy choices need further study. The erosion and
yield analysis of land conversion needs to be expanded
along the lines of a recently completed analysis of
acreage reduction programs. For specific sodbuster
provisions or other policy choices affecting one or more
major crops, the physical and economic information is now
available to anticipate yield, costs, and erosion impacts
for 105 local producing areas in the United States.
REFERENCES
Benbrook, C. A., P. Crosson, and C. W. Ogg. 1984.
Resource dimensions of agricultural policy. Proc.
Agricultural and Food Policy Conference, Berkeley,
Calif. Berkeley: Giannini Foundation.
Cory, D., and J. F. Timmons. 1982. Responsiveness of
soil erosion losses in the Corn Belt to increased
demands for agricultural products. J. Soil Water
Conserv. 33:221-226.
Doering, O., A. Schmitz, and J. Miranowski. 1983. Farm
costs and exports. Pp. 117-127 in Increasing
Understanding of Public Problems and Policies. Oak
Brook, Ill.: The Farm Foundation.
Erickson, M. H., and K. Collins. 1985. Effectiveness of
acreage reduction programs. Pp. 166-185 in
Agriculture-Food Policy Review, No. 530. Washington,
D.C.: USDA Economic Research Service.
Heimlich, R. E., and N. L. Bills. 1984. An improved soil
erosion classification for conservation policy. J.
Soil Water Conserv. 39:261-266.
Huang, W., B. English, S. Webb, and C. Ogg. 1984. A
national linear programming model and data base for
analysis of soil erosion. Unpublished.
Huszar, P. C., and J. E. Young. 1984. Why the Great
Colorado Plowout? J. Soil Water Conserv. 39: 232-23 4 .
Colorado Plowout? J. Soil Water Conserv. 39:232-234.
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Ogg, C. W. 1985. Cross-compliance and fragile croplands.
In Farm Level Impacts of Adopting Cross-Compliance
Programs: Policy Implications. Proc. American
Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. Columbia:
Department of Agricultural Economics, University of
Missouri.
Ogg, C. W., and H. B. Pionke. 1986. Water quality and
farm policy initiatives. J. Soil Water Conserv.
March-April 1986. In press.
Ogg, C. W., H. B. Pionke, and R. E. Heimlich. 1983. A
linear programing economic analysis of lake quality
improvement using phosphorus buffer curves. Water
Resour. Res. 19:21-31.
Ogg, C. W., S. Webb, and W. Huang. 1984. Economic
analysis of acreage reduction alternatives including a
soil conservation reserve and competitive bids. J.
Soil Water Conserv. 39:379-383.
USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture). 1980. National
Summary Evaluation of the Agricultural Conservation
Program: Phase I. Washington, D.C.: USDA Agricultural
Stabilization and Conservation Service.
USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture). 1984.
Conservation Use Acres Study. Washington, D.C.: USDA.
Webb, S., C. W. Ogg, and W. Huang. 1984. Economic
analysis of acreage reduction strategies. Paper
presented at the American Agricultural Economics
Association Meeting, Ithaca, N.Y., August 6, 1984.
Watts, M. J., L. D. Bender, and J. B. Johnson. 1983.
Economic incentives for converting rangeland to
cropland. Bull. 1302. Boseman: Cooperative Extension
Service, Montana State University.
Discussion
Wesley D. Seitz
Ogg's paper focuses attention on the quality of the
land being added to the production base compared with the
quality of that already in crops. Quality is measured in
terms of productivity and susceptibility to erosion.
Evidence suggests that it may be appropriate to develop
policy initiatives to control, or at least influence,
land conversion decisions because significant acreages of
less productive and more erosion-prone land are being
brought into production.
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An attempt to develop federal "sodbuster" legislation
is an indication that the policy process is already
sensitive to one manifestation of this problem. As Ogg
indicates, the problem is more pervasive; therefore,
additional legislative initiatives might be beneficial
over time.
A fine tuning of this analysis would be helpful,
although it is not clear whether the data are available
in the NRI to do this. The average productivity of land
being added is lower and the average erosion rate is
higher than that of land in the productive base. However,
this is not adequate to suggest that a policy of pro-
hibiting all land conversion should be adopted. It is
reasonable to expect that some land coming into produc-
tion has higher productivity and lower erosion rates than
some land in the base. If the objective is to improve
the quality of land in production, the thrust of policy
development should be to slow or stop the conversion of
poor, erodible land to row-crop uses, while allowing land
with low erodible potential to move into the production
base. Policies that would reduce the intensity of
production on erodible land currently in the production
base would also be consistent with this objective.
A bid system for taking land out of production in any
given year has substantial appeal, although there may be
regional equity consequences that would make it difficult
to implement. It is possible that in some areas nearly
all land would be bid out of production, with obvious
adverse consequences for input and processing companies.
unaffected.
Other areas would be
A closely related alternative, purchasing easements
for crop production rights on erodible land, has been
previously mentioned. In this case, the operator may use
the erodible land to produce crops that do not require
annual tillage. In this sense, it is equivalent to
purchasing mineral rights. Several aspects of this
policy are worthy of mention. First, by precluding
intensive cropping options, easement purchase would to
some degree address the current problems of excessive
production. Second, it would be possible to allow land
to return to production. Third, because the most
erodible land is often also the least productive and the
least profitable, it should be possible to attract large
acreages of land out of production at relatively low cost
per acre. This is not always the case, however, and
different policy approaches would be necessary in those
areas.
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Given world economic conditions, it seems that in the
intermediate term, deflated crop prices will drift
downward or hold constant. This trend is suggested by
the current emphasis in the policymaking arena on moving
toward a free market, a foreign trade orientation in
establishing crop prices. Some land may therefore be
taken out of production by operators for the obverse of
the reasons suggested by Ogg that it be brought into
production.
In the current political climate, it is not reasonable
to expect increased funds for conservation programs in
the next fiscal year. When policy formulators make the
difficult decisions concerning the expenditure of limited
dollars, they are going to respond to the current farm
financial crisis. It is real. Many farmers will be or
are going bankrupt, and they are going to attract the
politicians' attention. Actions designed to address this
problem, either in the short term or the long term, are
likely to take priority over soil erosion problems in the
development of the 1985 farm bill.
However, over the longer run, the funding for erosion
control may receive a higher orioritv.
_ , , _ _ ~
It is reasonable
to expect that offsite damages from erosion, such as
sedimentation, are going to substantially overshadow the
productivity damages associated with erosion over the
next 5 to 10 years. Sedimentation of reservoirs,
drainage ditches, and harbors is going to be a bigger
problem than the onsite damages used in determining T
values, the ubiquitous soil loss tolerance limits. It
may be worthwhile to begin now to develop a tolerance
limit based on the offsite damages associated with
erosion, perhaps designated I. (The wave-like shape is
an appropriate symbolism.)
If water quality-based soil loss limits, I, were
established, in many cases they would be more restrictive
than the productivity-based limits, T.
If the ~ limits
are to be implemented, it will be incumbent on the public
sector to do so.
It seems that tolerance limits were set a number of
years ago, based upon general impressions of erosion
rates appropriate to allow sustained productivity.
Research now under way may allow the development of more
accurate assessments of a tolerance limit reflecting the
impacts of productivity damages. Refining such a set of
erosion limits or targets would be extremely helpful in
the development of more robust models at the farm,
watershed, state, and national levels. These models
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would facilitate the analysis of policy alternatives that
might provide the means of developing significantly more
efficient, production-oriented policy responses.
Discussion
Marion Clawson
Ogg's paper raises four questions about land that has
recently gone--or will go--into production. First, why
was this land not cropped in 1979? Was it a concern over
erodibility, or was it something else? What was the
circumstance that led the farmer not to crop it at that
time? This is one place where researchers might look for
factors other than erosion.
Second, why was this land brought into cultivation in
these 3 years? ~ ~
The paper implies--rightly, no doubt--that
government programs had something to do with it. But on
the other hand, just a very few years earlier, farmers
were enjoying some of the most favorable crop prices
ever. Why were these particular acres not plowed up in
the early 1970s instead of the late 1970s? One answer
might be that the farmers have more confidence in their
political power to get government subsidies than they
have faith in the competitive market to provide them with
favorable prices.
Third, is there a lot of additional land not now in
crops that is near the margin of development? More
explicitly, what are the projections of the rate at which
additional land will come into development over the next
few years or longer? As pointed out, crop acreage reduc-
tion programs have nearly offset new land development.
In other words, U.S. farmers have been running hard to
stay in the same place; it seems they are going to have
to continue to run hard to stay in the same place.
Lastly, what changes in farm organization and farm
management are implicit in these recent land
developments? It is assumed that all the land developed
between 1979 and 1982 was already on farms, and must have
precipitated shifts in farm organization and farm
management.
These questions, although primarily economic ones,
might have considerable implications for soil erosion in
the future. There has been a shift away from livestock
and toward crops. Will there be a shift back?
Representative terms from entire chapter:
highly erodible
