I directly estimate the acre-for-acre impact of crop insurance participation on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) enrollment at the county level. The government may be sponsoring competing interests if subsidized insurance expands production at the expense of CRP. I employ an instrumental variables technique to correct for endogeneity in insurance decisions. Results suggest that an additional 1,000 acres insured reduces CRP enrollment by about three acres, though effect sizes vary by region. Local policy initiatives such as conservation compliance incentives could help offset local environmental consequences of converting land from CRP to insured production.

This study develops a model to examine the impacts of uncertainty about crop production and irreversibility of program participation on determining land rental payments and least-cost land retirement targeting in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Results show that under risk aversion only, the marginal cost of abatement and the average land rental payment are less than those under risk neutrality. However, under uncertainty and irreversibility, the marginal cost of abatement and the average land rental payment are considerably higher than those under risk neutrality or risk aversion only. It is important to incorporate uncertainty and irreversibility into the design of land rental payments and in determining participation constraints.

Among Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) participants, there is a distinction between farm households using the program to ease out of farming and those using the program to augment production receipts. We find evidence that factors other than crop or livestock revenue and environmental factors are associated with program participation and acreage enrollment among farmers who continue agricultural production. Program payments and farm size are positively associated with the amount of land enrolled in the CRP, and characteristics of participants in land retirement and working-lands CRP components are similar.

Policy issues surrounding Federal programs for land retirement as a means of curtailing soil erosion are discussed in this paper. The analysis is structured around productivity differentials observed for New York cropland rated as highly erosive, moderately erosive, or nonerosive.