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Land Tenure and the Adoption of Conservation Practices By Meredith J. Soule, Abebayehu Tegene, Keith D. Wiebe ERS Elsewhere No. 0104, November 2000 Does land tenure affect a farmer’s adoption of conservation practices? This is a classic question in economics, and it remains important today. Agricultural Census data show that agricultural land leasing declined from 45 percent of U.S. farmland in 1935 to 35 percent in 1950, but subsequently increased to 41 percent by 1997. The authors use a logit adoption model with data on 941 U.S. corn producers from the 1996 Agricultural Resource Management Study to analyze the influence of land tenure on the adoption of conservation practices. The authors extend previous analyses by distinguishing renters according to lease type and by distinguishing conservation practices according to the timing of costs and benefits. Keywords: land tenure, conservation practices, conservation tillage, conservation policy, cash rent, share rent, owner-operator, economic research service, ers, usda, u.s. department of agriculture Get this document in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov page updated: April 12, 2001

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