Land Use of Rejected, Enrolled, and Expiring Fields in the Conservation Reserve Program

by Andrew B. Rosenberg, Bryan Pratt, David Arnold, and Ryan Williams

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)—the agency’s largest land retirement program—pays landowners a yearly rental fee to plant and maintain environmentally beneficial land covers on eligible portions of their land instead of crops. In this report, the authors determine the extent to which the CRP removes land from production and examines land-use outcomes of parcels that were both offered and rejected in 2016 from the General Signup, the CRP’s competitive auction mechanism. The 2016 General Signup had the highest rate of rejection in the history of the contemporary CRP General Signup at approximately 82 percent. The study finds that of acres rejected from the 2016 CRP Signup, 37.7 percent were in crops from 2017 through 2019, 14.7 percent in mixed forage, 20.7 percent in grassland, 10.6 percent fallowed or idled, 0.6 percent in timber, and 15.7 in CRP through Continuous Signup.

How to Cite:

Rosenberg, A. B., Pratt, B., Arnold, D., & Williams, R. (2024). Land use of rejected, enrolled, and expiring fields in the Conservation Reserve Program (Report No. EIB-276). U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. https://doi.org/10.32747/2024.8583173.ers

Keywords: Carbon sequestration, conservation program, Environmental Benefits Index, land retirement, rejected offers

In this publication...

• Entire Report
• Report summary