GREEN PAYMENTS AS FORESHADOWED BY EQIP

This paper addresses the potential of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to become the first true green payment program, one which is not directly linked to farm income goals as all conservation programs have been in the past, even in contrast to the Conservation Reserve Program and the now obsolete Agricultural Conservation Program. EQIP is thus discussed as a new generation of conservation programs which are General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-legal (no payments to farmers which may influence trade) and more targeted to actual agro-environmental problems than the traditional conservation programs. In the next sections, the paper raises two important questions: First, to what extent should green payments substitute for traditional commodity payments, as they are being phased out? If taking water quality problems into account, EQIP does not reach the geographic areas of the highest commodity program payments, although substitution was never intended and has inherent problems. The paper then looks at EQIP as a green payment program, discussing to what extent EQIP reflects the desired characteristics of a GATT-legal green payment program. Three such characteristics are discussed as hurdles for a successful EQIP implementation: a program has to be targeted, tailored and transparent. Additionally, rent-seeking by various private interests, lack of science-based data, agency and farmer inertia and the complexity of the program are all challenges which must be faced. The study concludes with a discussion of the future of green payments.Environmental Economics and Policy,

DISCUSSION: LOCATION DETERMINANTS OF MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN RURAL AREAS

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

The Multifunctional Attributes of Northeastern Agriculture: A Research Agenda

In the United States' Northeastern region, there is an increasing interest in the public benefits from agriculture. These benefits are frequently referred to as multifunctional attributes. The policy challenge is to find an effective way to reflect these public demands so that multifunctional agriculture can be profitable. There is a significant research agenda that accompanies this challenge. Research topics include assessing and understanding consumer demand for multifunctional attributes, estimating the long-run returns to those production systems which supply these attributes, and designing and evaluating institutional arrangements to supply them.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

The Demand for Economic Policy Analysis: Is Anyone Listening?

Agricultural and Food Policy,

THE NEW ERA OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE: UNCERTAINTIES AND CONSTRAINTS

Agricultural and Food Policy,

EMERGING RURAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Environmental Economics and Policy,

AGRICULTURE AS THE PROBLEM: NEW AGENDAS AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Agribusiness,

Mitigating Damages From Coastal Wetlands Development: Policy, Economics and Financing

This paper looks at the problem of modeling the welfare consequences of the effects of environmental changes on the bioeconomic equilibrium of fisheries. The equilibrium catch equation is suggested as the most appropriate mechanism for modelling these effects. Several different models are presented, based on the availability of data. It is shown that a model in which the equilibrium catch function is estimated directly as a function of environmental quality will be superior to a model which takes the stock effects from an independent ecosystem model. Models are also suggested for those cases in which only proxies for stock levels are available, and for those cases in which no stock data are available.Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Public Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

TOWARD AGRICULTURAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT: APPLYING LESSONS FROM CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Many business firms both in the U.S. and abroad are practicing corporate environmental management. They are committed to improving the efficiency of material use, energy use and water use; to recycle; to make safer products and processes and to reduce their overall impact on the environment. In pursuing corporate environmental management, some businesses have found that the presumed tradeoff between profits and environmental quality does not always apply. Instead, by innovating and redesigning their products, processes, corporate culture, and organizational strategy, these firms have been able to improve environmental performance and add to profits. These improved profits are sometimes referred to as "innovation offsets" because they result from technological changes to reduce pollution which also reduce production costs (and/or improve productivity) and thereby "offset" the costs of compliance. The necessary technological innovation is pursued when firms take a dynamic investment perspective rather than presume a static tradeoff between profits and environmental quality.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Biotechnology and the environment

Much of the debate about biotechnology and the environment is not so much about the nature and magnitude of the risk, but rather, who should bear the costs if a course of action proves to be in error. Should biotechnology products be readily approved for use, placing the burden of error on the environment? Or should the products be very cautiously screened, placing the bur-den of error on the inventors and users of the product