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The Relevance Of Offsetting Policy Effects: Covert Distributive Politics In The Conservation Reserve Program , Robert Carey

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The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), as initially authorized by the Food Security Act of 1985, operated by removing land from agricultural production in order to generate environmental benefits, primarily erosion reduction. Policy, however, often generates unintended consequences. One potential unintended consequence in the CRP is slippage; if the upward pressure that the idling of cropland exerts on commodity prices results in the activation of new land, behavior that may partly offset the program's environmental benefits, then price-feedback slippage is said to have occurred. Examination of county-level wheat production data for the United States during the years 1980 to 1993 utilizes …