How Does Farmland Retirement Affect Rural Counties?

Abstract

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) offers incentives for producers and landowners to voluntarily retire cropland. The program’s benefits to the environment, CRP participants, and other crop farmers have made it a recurring focus of farm program legislation. While anecdotal evidence suggests that the CRP has negatively affected some rural communities, recent ERS research indicates that, in the aggregate, impacts have been limited.

Keywords: conservation reserve program, economic impacts, whole farm enrollment, partial farm enrollment

JEL Classification: Q18, Q24