Measuring Potential Environmental
Benefits in the CRP
Cynthia
Nickerson
Typically, programs
to improve environmental performance
on agricultural lands have multiple
objectives, such as improving water
quality and wildlife nesting grounds,
and seek to achieve these objectives
at the lowest cost. These programs often
rely on voluntary participation and
cost sharing to achieve these objectives.
This means program managers need some
way of choosing which program applications
to enroll. An index that combines information
about disparate environmental objectives
and cost can serve this purpose. It
can also be used to signal how well
program objectives may be met.
USDA’s Farm
Service Agency (FSA) uses the Environmental
Benefits Index (EBI) to evaluate and
rank land offered for enrollment in
the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).
The EBI aggregates different environmental
objectives and a cost objective into
a single number.
Points are first allocated
to each objective based on the relative
benefits of obtaining that objective.
For example, the EBI in the 29th signup
in 2004 included five environmental
objectives. Three of these—enhancing
wildlife habitat, improving water quality,
and reducing erosion—were expected
to provide relatively equal benefits
and each was assigned 100 points, out
of a total of 545 points. Improving
air quality was expected to provide
relatively fewer benefits, and this
objective was allocated 45 points.
When an applicant offers
to implement cover practices in any
given signup, FSA evaluates them and
assigns points based on the potential
environmental benefits to be generated,
or how well the practices are likely
to contribute to each objective during
the time the land is enrolled in the
program. For example, an offer to plant
a mixed stand of native grasses might
earn 50 out of 100 points toward enhancing
wildlife habitat, whereas planting one
type of an introduced grass species
might earn only 10 points. For each
signup, FSA totals the points each offer
earns toward each objective into a single
summary EBI score. Offers are then enrolled
based on which have the highest EBI
scores until the program acreage cap
is reached.
The EBI reflects nationally
determined priorities, and the same
EBI is used to evaluate and enroll offers
from across the country at the end of
each signup. However, analysis of CRP
data reveals that contracts vary by
region in the environmental objectives
they address. Even when contracts in
different regions address the same objectives,
contracts can have very different index
scores, meaning they are likely to provide
different levels of benefits in different
regions. Scores for individual objectives,
and thus potential benefits, can vary
across regions due to inherent differences
in land quality, as well as in the types
of practices that producers find profitable
to implement in exchange for the program
payment.
EBI scores for each
objective also reveal how much of the
total possible benefits are likely to
be achieved in the signup. Regions with
contracts that average 50 out of 100
points for a particular objective provide
50 percent of that objective’s
total potential benefits.
For
more information. . . |
Balancing
the Multiple Objectives of Conservation
Programs, by Andrea Cattaneo,
Daniel Hellerstein, Cynthia Nickerson,
and Christina Myers, ERR-19, USDA,
Economic Research Service, May
2006.
“Land
Retirement,” Chapter
6.2 in Agricultural Resources
and Environmental Indicators,
by Mark Smith, USDA, Economic
Research Service, December 2000.
“Environmental
Benefits Index,” USDA,
Farm Service Agency, September
1999. |
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