Conservation Reserve Program Boosts Outdoor Recreation
in Rural Communities
Daniel
Hellerstein
As growth in the biofuels industry increases
demand for raw materials, market pressures to devote
more land to crop production may lead to the conversion
of millions of current Conservation Reserve Program
(CRP) acres back to cropland. The 36.7 million acres
of U.S. farmland currently enrolled in the CRP provide
a range of environmental benefits. Those positive
effects could be lost if CRP lands were brought
back into production.
The CRP is a voluntary program
run by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA). Agricultural
producers enrolled in CRP plant long-term, resource-conserving
vegetative covers to improve the quality of water,
control soil erosion, and enhance wildlife habitat.
In return, FSA provides participants with rental
payments and cost-share assistance. Contracts last
from 10 to 15 years.
By improving wildlife habitat
and air and water quality, CRP has significantly
increased the number and variety of wildlife, attracting
bird watchers, hunters, anglers, and other outdoor
recreation enthusiasts, who then spend money in
rural areas. In 2004, ERS research confirmed that
the CRP’s environmental benefits can substantially
increase recreational expenditures in rural counties.
Based on data from national surveys of farmers and
hunters, increases in recreational spending attributable
to CRP enrollment are estimated to be as much as
$290 million per year. This dollar amount includes
revenue reported by farmers from recreational uses
of their CRP land, as well as the nonfarm local
spending of visitors to CRP land for outdoor recreation.
A number of simplifying assumptions
were needed to arrive at this estimate, making its
precision hard to gauge without more detailed information
from landowners and outdoor recreation enthusiasts.
However, other analyses also found similarly substantial
economic benefits from CRP-induced recreation. For
example, one study by Dean A. Bangsund, Nancy M.
Hodur, and F. Larry Leistritz of North Dakota State
University estimates that CRP lands in North Dakota
attract about $13 million per year in recreation-related
spending. The same attributes that attract hunters
and other outdoor enthusiasts—clean air and
water and a healthy ecosystem—create attractive
landscapes that make rural communities more pleasant
places in which to live and work.
This
finding is drawn from . . . |
| The
Conservation Reserve Program: Economic Implications
for Rural America, by Patrick Sullivan,
Daniel Hellerstein, LeRoy Hansen, Robert Johansson,
Steven Koenig, Ruben Lubowski, William McBride,
David McGranahan, Michael Roberts, Stephen
Vogel, and Shawn Bucholtz, AER-834, USDA,
Economic Research Service, November 2004. |
|
Download PDF version