Abstract:
The agriculture production system in the post-war United States is characterized
as highly specialized and increasingly dependent on off-farm inputs. Although the US
has traditionally supported agriculture with numerous government commodity programs
such as target prices, nonrecourse loans, and deficiency payments, agriculture today is
perceived as one of the major sources of environmental degradation.
In this thesis research, the conservation compliance provision in the Food
Security Act of 1985 and 1990, as well as various other conservation policy alternatives,
are evaluated for five representative farms in terms of its effectiveness in preserving the
agricultural resources and protecting the environment. Highly erodible lands in Western
Oregon is the study area of this thesis since the agricultural lands are used for the
production of a variety of crops and are considered susceptible to environmental damage.
The conservation compliance provision performs fairly well in reducing soil
erosion and protecting water quality. But its performance depends on the characteristics
of the representative farms. Alternative policies are found to be more cost effective in
reducing these externalities, although no single policy is the most cost-effective for all
types of farms in reducing all environmental outputs. Trade-offs exist between net return
and environmental output production as well as among environmental externalities.
The nature of the environmental externalities such as nonpoint source pollution
and the uncertain parameters for biosimulation and economic models are limiting
features of the study.
