Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1981

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Agricultural Economics

Major Professor

Thomas H. Klindt

Committee Members

Dan McLemore, Luther Keller

Abstract

Soil erosion from agricultural land has caused concern over public costs associated with water pollution and long term degradation of the land resource. Such concerns have led to public intervention directed toward reducing soil erosion from agricultural land. Varia-tion exists to the degree to which soil is allowed, through management decisions, to erode among tracts of land. If soil erosion rates on agricultural land are associated with ownership characteristics, then it is possible that efficiency in public policy could be enhanced through targeting of policy instruments on owners with specific charac-teristics. Accordingly, the general purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between landownership characteristics and soil erosion on agricultural land. Specific objectives were to: (1) determine socioeconomic and landholding characteristics of private landowners in Tennessee during 1978; (2) evaluate the relationship between cropland owner characteristics and management practices associated with soil erosion in Tennessee; and (3) indicate and evalu-ate conservation needs for Tennessee land uses. Data were obtained from the National Resource Inventory conducted during 1977 by the Soil Conservation Service and the 1978 follow-up Landownership Survey conducted by the Natural Resources Economics Division of the United States Department of Agriculture. There were 24.7 million acres of privately owned land in Tennessee, of which 3.9 million acres were cropland, 6.4 million acres were pasture, 13.7 million acres were forest, and 0.5 million acres were in "other" uses. On 21 million acres, estimated soil loss was 5 or fewer tons per acre per year (t/a/y). Cropland accounted for most of the land on which soil loss was greater than 5 t/a/y. On cropland, estimated soil loss was 20.5 t/a/y while the soil loss tolerance was 4.3 t/a/y. The most commonly used conservation practices were contour farming, followed closely by crop residue cover. In terms of conserva-tion practice needs, 1.5 million acres of cropland, including hay, was treated adequately in terms of soil conservation. Almost 3.2 million acres needed additional erosion control. On pastureland, no treatment was needed on 15 percent of the acreage. However, almost 72 percent of the pastureland in Tennessee needed to have vegetation established. A significant amount of forestland which was not grazed needed timber stand improvement. To evaluate the relationship between landownership character-istics and soil erosion rates, regression analysis was used. The estimated soil loss in t/a/y was the dependent variable while selected owner characteristics were independent variables. In general, few significant relationships between dependent and independent variables were discovered. Findings of this research provide little guidance in targeting soil conservation policy instruments on landowner characteristics.

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