Assistance to USDA Farm Service Agency on the Conservation Reserve Program and Conservation Policies in Agriculturally Dominated Landscapes

Research Task: RB00CM7.1.0
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. Under guidance from the FSA, FORT scientists are completing biological, social, and economic research focusing 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. 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

• Grazing effects on plant community succession of early- and mid-seral CRP seeded grassland compared to undisturbed shortgrass steppe
• Grazing effects on aboveground primary production and root biomass of earlyseral, mid-seral, and undisturbed semiarid grassland
• Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contributions to wildlife habitat, management issues, challenges and policy choices- an annotated bibliography
• Allelopathic cover crop prior to seeding is more important than subsequent grazing/mowing in grassland establishment
• Fort Collins Science Center–Integrating Agriculture and Conservation
• Effect of “incidental” winter grazing in selected continuous signup CRP buffers
• A national survey of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) participants on environmental effects, wildlife issues, and vegetation management on program lands
• The nonmarket economic benefits provided by increased recreational fishing from Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) related water quality improvement
• Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) benefits to wildlife: A national perspective
• Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contributions to avian habitat
• The economics of wildlife and the CRP
• Regional and state perspectives on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contributions to wildlife habitat
• Wildlife habitat criteria in relation to future use of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands
• Effects of the CRP on wildlife habitat: Emergency haying in the Midwest and pine plantings in the southeast
• Effects of the conservation reserve program on wildlife habitat: results of 1988 monitoring

Web Sites

• Riverine science at the Fort Collins Science Center