Are preserved farms actively engaged in agriculture and conservation?

Abstract

Abstract:This study addresses the question of whether farms enrolled in land preservation programs are actively engaged in agricultural or conservation activities. Data are drawn from an original survey administered to preserved farm owners in the states of New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware in 2011. "Actively engaged" is defined as investment in conservation projects, buildings, equipment, or irrigation since the land was preserved. Affirmative answers to the survey's investment questions range from a low of 19% for irrigation to a high of 69% for equipment. Special attention was paid to differences between lifestyle farmers and small and large commercial farmers, which are classified using the USDA typology developed in 2000. Regression analysis estimates differences in investment behavior across these groups as well as farm tenure categories, controlling for farm size, program/ state location, and demographic variables. Only owners who employ tenants or managers exclusively on their land were found to invest significantly less than the largest professional farmers, and they did so across all four types of investment. This study's findings support preservation goals articulated by legislators and program administrators, because (1) agricultural and land stewardship investments appear to be widespread on preserved farms, partly due to administrators' preference for larger parcels, (2) there is no evidence that "hobby farmers" are disproportionately attracted to farmland preservation programs -in fact the opposite seems to be true -while those that exist in our sample behave similarly to the largest commercial farmers, (3) although tenant farming is associated in the sample with lower rates of investment, it is less common on preserved farms than on all farms in the three study states. The matter of land tenure, highlighted in this as in other studies, has not yet become a primary focus of either farm-behavioral research or state agricultural policy. 2 Es s E k s E t a l .

Adoption of agricultural conservation practices in the United States: Evidence from 35 years of quantitative literature

“…Following the literature, which generally hypothesizes positive relationships between farm characteristics and conservation adoption, we posit a positive hypothesis for all subcategories except for soil quality (table 5). Prior research indicates, for example, that the size of the farm (acres) increases adoption of many types of conservation practices including conservation tillage (Belknap and Saupe 1988), water conservation (Dorfman 1996;Gottlieb et al 2015), cover crops (Dunn et al 2016), nutrient management (Caswell et al 2001), and rotational grazing (Gillespie et al 2007). Land tenure is considered an important construct (Soule et al 2000); when farm operators own the land they manage, studies have observed an increase in the level of adoption of a number of practices including nutrient management (Bosch et al 1995;Khanna 2001), pest management (Caswell et al 2001), and soil management practices (Lichtenberg 2004).…”

Illiquid Capital: Are Conservation Easement Payments Reinvested in Farms?

“…Asymmetric tendencies were also .0000. Related to Models 2, 4, and 6 was 4-variate probit (with some different variables), which was previously reported in Gottlieb et al (2015), but the results were not compared to the three other regressions as they were herein. Reserve categories of the indicator variables in all models are: Owner-nonoperator, Heir-nonrelative.…”

Farmland tenure and transaction costs: Public and collectively owned land vs conventional coordination mechanisms in France

“…There is agreement that the coordination mechanism through which farmers have access to land is determinant. Numerous articles also concern PDRs (Gottlieb et al, 2015;Liu & Lynch, 2011;Schilling, Attavanich, Sullivan, & Marxen, 2014;Towe, Nickerson, & Bockstael, 2008), which are currently neither full nor long-term RAs to preserve farmland. Therefore, evaluating the LFRAs' effectiveness in reaching the goal of preserving farmland from land use changethrough urbanization or even simply farming abandonment-requires an economic analysis of the lease arrangements they induce.…”

“…To date, studies assessing the agricultural effects of RAs on preserving farmland have addressed land trusts without analyzing the effects on the agricultural economy (Dissart, 2006;Parker, 2004). Numerous articles also concern PDRs (Gottlieb et al, 2015;Liu & Lynch, 2011;Schilling, Attavanich, Sullivan, & Marxen, 2014;Towe, Nickerson, & Bockstael, 2008), which are currently neither full nor long-term RAs to preserve farmland. Our article aims at helping fill this gap by providing an economic approach to contracts provided by LFRAs.…”