Farm Management Update

Quarterly Publication of Ohio State University Extension

Summer 2003

Ohio Farmers and Farm Environmental Policy

Lindsey Pound, Carl Zulauf, Brent Sohngen, and Allan Lines
Respectively, undergraduate student, McCormick Professor of Agricultural Marketing and Policy, Associate Professor, and Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, The Ohio State University

In March/April 2001, a survey was conducted to research the views of Ohio farmers on selected farm environmental issues. Questions addressed agriculture's role as a polluter, fiscal incentives to promote environmental benefits, conservation compliance, preservation of open space and farmland, regulation of livestock production, and Total Maximum Daily Load regulations (TMDLs).

As a group, 21% and 7% of Ohio farmers indicated that Ohio agriculture is a major polluter of water and air, respectively. This opinion drops to 1% of farmers who have farm sales and government payments in excess of $250,000. These results stand in direct contrast to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's (OEPA) appraisal of agriculture's role in water pollution. Based on its year 2000 assessment cycle, OEPA lists agriculture as the second largest source of impairment to aquatic life in Ohio streams and rivers and as the largest contributor to the largest source of impairment, hydromodification. Thus, a substantial gap exists between the views of Ohio farmers and OEPA on agriculture's role in water pollution.

By a small margin, Ohio farmers responded that row crop agriculture has a more negative impact on water quality in Ohio than livestock agriculture. However, an interesting contrast existed: 62% of farmers who sold no livestock listed livestock agriculture as more polluting than row crop agriculture, while 69% of farmers who sold livestock listed row crop agriculture as more polluting than livestock agriculture (Figure 1). This contrast suggests that farmers may be more likely to see an agricultural practice as polluting if they do not use the practice.

Federal Incentive Payments for Environmental Benefits: Ohio farmers strongly supported using financial incentives to encourage practices that benefit the environment through agriculture. Such incentives are the cornerstone of the conservation title of the 2002 Farm Bill. Around 90% of farmers supported using incentives to protect water quality, protect farmland, and reduce soil erosion. Support was weakest for increasing carbon in the soil and providing habitats for endangered species (50% of farmers). In contrast to the strong support for using incentives, only 22% of Ohio farmers participated in conservation programs during the 2000 calendar year. Most of these programs use financial incentives to encourage participation. The difference between the widespread support for the use of fiscal incentives and the much lower participation in year 2000 conservation programs may reflect (1) pent-up demand for participating in incentive-based conservation programs, (2) a perception that past incentives have not been large enough, and/or (3) less willingness to participate in such programs even though personally supporting their existence.

Conservation Compliance: An alternative to incentive payments is to expand conservation compliance. When asked what should be required of farmers in exchange for receiving farm program benefits (i.e., conservation compliance), support ranged from 56% for requiring reduced tillage and 49% for requiring 20-foot buffer strips along waterways to 24% for requiring cover crops after harvest and for requiring no-till.

Open Space and Farmland Preservation: While only 19% of Ohio farmers stated that no government policy was needed to preserve open space and farmland, less than one-third expressed support for the two specific public policies listed in the survey: government funding to buy development rights (30%) and government rules to permit the transfer of development rights between areas (20%). Support was higher for voluntary easements (42%). However, among the options listed, the most favored was programs to improve farm profitability (66%).

Livestock Regulation by Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA): The Ohio General Assembly recently shifted the livestock waste permitting program to ODA from OEPA. Sixty-four percent of Ohio farmers agreed with the statement that ODA will regulate large livestock operations fairly. While a majority of the operators of smaller Ohio farms agreed with this statement, support was nearly 100% among operators of Ohio's largest farms. Ohio farmers were evenly split on whether Ohio's non-farm residents will view ODA as a credible regulator of livestock farms. When combined, these findings suggest ODA will face skepticism in establishing itself as a credible regulator of livestock farms.