Paying for Environmental Performance: Investing in Farmers and the Environment

This Policy Note explores the allocation of funding in Farm Bill conservation programs, and offers recommendations on how to more efficiently and effectively allocate conservation funding. The authors identify a number of areas where the allocation of public monies for conservation could be improved.

This policy note is largely written in the context of EQIP because it has one of the largest budgets of the Farm Bill conservation programs. Our recommendations, however, apply to the funding of conservation practices in general.

The first three sections of this Policy Note contain background information, while the remaining sections provide supporting information and conclusions for our recommendations.