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Wallace Institute releases new reports
TWO RECENT REPORTS AVAILABLE FROM THE WALLACE INSTITUTE
1. "Lean, Mean and Green...Designing Farm Support Programs in a New
Era," by Sarah Lynch and Katherine R. Smith. Policy Studies Program
Report No. 3. Greenbelt, MD: Henry A. Wallace Institute for
Alternative Agriculture, Dec. 1994. 27 pages; color maps included.
Price: $ 7.50/copy
Green Support Programs, under which farm income support would be
provided in return for farmers' provision of environmental
protection, reflect a relatively new concept in agricultural
policy. This report provides an overview of the concept, delineates
the various critical decisions that must be made in designing a
Green Support Program, and explores the implications of and
tradeoffs involved in making those decisions. By clearly defining
the broad opportunities and limitations of Green Support Programs,
it aims to inform the evolving debate about the concept and provide
general guidance to those involved in designing, promoting, or
evaluating policy options that fall in this class.
2. "Designing Green Support Programs," edited by Sarah Lynch.
Policy Studies Program Report No. 4. Greenbelt, MD: Henry A.
Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture, Dec. 1994. 119
pages.
Price: $ 10.00/copy
This companion to "Lean, Mean and Green..." provides in-depth
analysis of several of the critical decisions that must be made in
designing a Green Support Program. Contents Include the following.
a. "Designing Green Farm Programs: A Range of Options," by Sarah
Lynch, Wallace Institute. This paper provides a brief overview of
agriculture's general relation to environmental quality and
highlights some of the strengths and weaknesses of alternative
policy approaches to resolving agroenvironmental problems.
b. "Targeting Green Support Payments: The Geographic Interface
Between Agriculture and the Environment," by Ralph E. Heimlich,
USDA, Economic Research Service. This paper shows how
environmental indicators, developed using readily available data,
can provide information on the geographic distribution of potential
environmental damages from agricultural production which may, in
turn, prove useful in targeting green support or other
agroenvironmental program benefits to those locations where they
are likely to generate the biggest environmental "bang for the
buck." The development of 11 different environmental indicators
relevant to agroenvironmental problems is documented. Maps
illustrating the geographic distribution of these indicators under
different weighting schemes are included in the paper.
c. "Designing Green Support: Incentive Compatibility and the
Commodity Programs," by Professor C. Ford Runge, University of
Minnesota. Using clear and compelling logic, Runge demonstrates
the relationships between green support programs and five main
commodity program areas: deficiency payments resulting from the
loan rate/target price structure; acreage reduction programs;
conservation compliance, sodbuster and swampbuster programs; the
Conservation Reserve Program; and GATT obligations and planting
flexibility as a form of decoupling. He also develops the policy
changes that are required to make existing programs more compatible
with green supports.
d. "Designing a Successful Voluntary Green Support Program: What Do
We Know?" by Sandra S. Batie, Elton R. Smith Professor of Food and
Agricultural Policy, Michigan State University. Batie reviews a
voluminous literature to draw new and insightful conclusions about
the relationship between farm profitability and stewardship
behavior, and what this implies for the types of practices that
ought to be rewarded through a green support or other
agroenvironmental incentives program. Her review also leads her to
derive seven elements necessary for a successful, voluntary green
support program.
e. "Implementation Issues for Alternative Green Support Programs,"
by Professor Jerry R. Skees, University of Kentucky. Skees tackles
the issues of political motivation, bureaucratic behavior, and
stakeholder interests in how a green support program might actually
be applied. He looks also at the needs for accountability, and the
roles of science, technology and information in alternative
implementation schemes, and derives some general pros and cons
concerning state versus federal implementation and implementation
by various different agencies.
** To order a copy of either report, send a check by mail to: The
Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture, Suite 117,
9200 Edmonston Road, Greenbelt, Maryland 20770-1551. Or, call us at
(301) 441-8777 or E-mail your request (making sure to indicate
which title(s) you wish to receive), and tell us how to invoice you
or your organization.