Agriculture, government, and the environment: Exploring participation in the environmental quality incentives program

Adam Paul Reimer, Purdue University

Abstract

Governments in many countries, including the United States, operate programs and policies designed to address environmental problems stemming from agriculture. Yet, despite the existence of government programs for decades in the U.S., environmental problems persist. Agricultural environmental programs in the U.S. rely on voluntary participation by farmers and rural land managers; however drivers of farmer participation in such programs are poorly understood. The research presented in this dissertation utilized a mixed methods approach to explore farmer applications to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the largest federal working lands program in the U.S. A nested approach was used to explore the program at multiple geographic scales: national, state, and local. First, the impact of a variety of state agricultural and socio-political variables on EQIP application rates was investigated using a quantitative approach. Second, qualitative methods were used to explore state implementation of EQIP within four Midwestern states. This section investigated differences in how states make implementation decisions and how those decisions potentially impact application rates. Third, the participant perspective is explored utilizing a mixed-methods approach to investigate farmer participation in conservation programs in Newton County, Indiana. The three different levels of inquiry result in three key findings. The first is that non-financial drivers play a role in explaining program participation. A state-level measure of environmental opinions is related to farmer applications at the national level, and both resource professionals and farmers stress the importance of conservation beliefs in explaining participation. The second key finding is that EQIP is implemented in some significantly different ways in different states, including how they approach resource problems and the partnerships that they build with other organizations. The third key finding is that different farm communities have different levels of participation in conservation programs such as EQIP. The current structure of programs may discourage certain types of farms from applying. These findings offer insights that could be useful for future design and implementation of voluntary agricultural conservation programs.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Prokopy, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Environmental management|Natural Resource Management|Public policy

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