Analysis of Compatibility between USDA and Landowner Goals Using Socioeconomic and Biological Data

Research Task: 8327CM7.1.0
Task Manager: Mark Vandever

Agricultural land use accounts for over 50 percent of the surface area of the contiguous United States. How these lands are managed has direct and indirect implications for wildlife, water quality, and air quality in terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems locally and far beyond their extent. The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) needs information quantifying the effects of individual conservation practices and the effectiveness of administration of its conservation programs. Of these, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is the largest, with a current enrollment of over 34 million acres of potentially erosive or otherwise environmentally sensitive private lands in all 50 states. Under guidance from the FSA, FORT scientists are completing biological, social, and economic research relevant to program administration. Work focuses on assisting the FSA in refining management actions and policy decisions to achieve long-term provision of wildlife habitats and other environmental services compatible with farm operations and USDA environmental goals in agricultural landscapes. In 2007, this task involves (1) analysis of incidental grazing of linear conservation features in cooperation with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks; (2) a grazing study of CRP grasslands in the shortgrass-steppe region of eastern Colorado to determine the feasibility of management that favors endemic grassland species; (3) finalizing a summary document on various management aspects of conservation lands in agricultural landscapes; and (4) initiating a permanent vegetation monitoring study for wetlands in the Upper Mississippi and Ohio River Basin. Results of FORT studies are used by the FSA and other USDA conservation programs, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, State agencies, and non-governmental conservation organizations involved in implementing conservation policies affecting agricultural lands.

 For more information contact Mark Vandever

Related Products

Publications

• Wildlife habitat criteria in relation to future use of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands
• Regional and state perspectives on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contributions to wildlife habitat
• Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contributions to avian habitat
• The economics of wildlife and the CRP
• Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) benefits to wildlife: A national perspective
• A national survey of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) participants on environmental effects, wildlife issues, and vegetation management on program lands
• Effect of “incidental” winter grazing in selected continuous signup CRP buffers
• Effects of the conservation reserve program on wildlife habitat: results of 1988 monitoring
• Effects of the CRP on wildlife habitat: Emergency haying in the Midwest and pine plantings in the southeast