Many studies have considered the relationship between crop insurance and individual conservation practices. A new study considers the relationship between crop insurance and a broad set of conservation practices, as well as developing a unique approach to use survey data to measure the environmental impact of nitrogen that also accounts for a producers’ yield goals. The research is one step forward in conducting analysis that looks at the broader set of production and conservation practices on farms, as well as actual environmental impacts.
In the new article “Farm Heterogeneity and Leveraging Federal Crop Insurance for Conservation Practice Adoption” featured in the Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, Jennifer Ifft from Kansas State University and Margaret Jodlowski from The Ohio State University, dig into if farm that use crop insurance have different conservation practices and more or less nitrogen use, relative to other farms.
The authors say, “Many current and proposed policies aim to use the Federal crop insurance program to leverage adoption of conservation practices. The broad goal of the FCIP to promote the economic stability of the agricultural economy may be complementary with this broad push towards conservation incentives and endorsements, but other policymakers and farm interest groups have raised concerns about maintaining the integrity of the FCIP as the primary tool used to manage revenue risk by many operations.
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Categories: Ohio, Crops