United States

This chapter presents the design and implementation of the USDA Conservation Reserve Programme, a national agri-environmental programme that provides payments to landholders to retire farmland and improve the environmental quality of agricultural land. The CRP implements a range of management practices to protect highly erodible and environmentally sensitive land, improve water quality, and enhance wildlife habitat. The programme allocates contracts via an auctioning mechanism, targeting payments according to environmental benefits and cost. This helps enhance the cost-effectiveness of the programme. The challenges and lessons learned from the CRP are discussed.

Paying for Biodiversity: Enhancing the Cost-Effectiveness of Payments for Ecosystem Services

United States

The USDA Conservation Reserve Programme