The opportunity cost of the conservation reserve program on Kansas agricultural land

Abstract

Because Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts take land out of production for at least ten years, when deciding to enroll a parcel of land, a landowner must weigh the opportunity costs of hindering production flexibility against a guaranteed constant annual return. This thesis discusses whether having a CRP contract on a parcel of land in any way effects the value of that parcel. This is accomplished through the use of a hedonic model using data from 1998-2014 on Kansas agricultural land transactions. Results show that unlike in previous literature, while the effect of CRP is typically negative, it can become positive depending on the state of market factors at the time of the transaction.