Abstract
Strategically targeting environmentally sensitive row crop areas for conservation enrollment via precision agriculture technologies requires a thorough understanding of the economic outcomes of potential lost opportunity costs to the producers. Variability in commodity prices adds uncertainty to this process due to temporal changes in break-even thresholds of profit. Economically targeting areas for conservation only when the revenue received from conservation payment exceeds revenue from production alleviates the risk of lost opportunity cost. The US Farm Bill Conservation Title includes the Conservation Reserve Program, which incentivizes agricultural producers to remove arable land from production to enhance soil retention, improve water quality, and restore wildlife habitat. However, producers are often concerned with economic opportunity costs associated with converting cropped acres to conservation enrollment. Previous research has demonstrated that economically targeted (ET) enrollment of conservation buffers can increase whole-field revenue. However, the extent of that effect across a range of commodity prices and multiple years of cropping data has received minimal attention. To evaluate this relationship, yield data derived from 181 field-years in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, United States, were evaluated in a decision support tool to compare the economic and environmental opportunities associated with ET buffer establishment across a range of commodity prices. A revenue distribution function was developed to illustrate changes in conservation revenue as commodity prices fluctuate. Results show that even at high commodity prices, ET conservation enrollment increased field revenue relative to agricultural production alone.