FINAL PROGRAM

THE FARM BILL AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Phoenix Park Hotel

520 North Capitol Street N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20001

Thursday, June 28

8:30-10:00 a.m.:"The State of Agricultural Resources and the Environment: Why Should We Care?"

Speakers:

Professor H.H. Cheng, University of Minnesota

Jan van Schilfgaarde, Retired Director, Agricultural Research Service’s Pacific West Area

Jeanne Christie, Assoc. of State Wetlands Managers

Questions considered:

Is the condition of agricultural land a matter that only affects farmers?
How does soil quality affect landscape-scale values?
Are current measures of success, e.g., "t" or soil erosion rates or number of acres of wetlands, meaningful, given what scientists now know?
Is the quality of the resource improving or declining?
Are there large environmental benefits that can be obtained from agriculture?
Are the environmental side effects of agriculture significant and/or worsening?

10:00-10:15 a.m.: BREAK

10:15-12:00 noon: "Farming Incentives and the Environment"

Speakers:

Kathy Segerson, University of Connecticut

Jinhua Zhao, Iowa State University

Ted Napier, Ohio State University

Kitty Smith, U. S. Department of Agriculture

Questions considered:

What do we know about creating incentives to change the way the land is managed to protect ecological values and functions?
Who should make these decisions?
Who should pay to put practices in place?
How do we get economy of scale in the provision of environmental amenities?
This session will cover both conceptual issues of pollution control and nonpoint issues as well as empirical evidence of the performance of incentives in enhancing environmental quality.

12:00-1:00 p.m.: LUNCH

Keynote Speaker: U.S. Senator Pat Roberts

1:00-3:00 p.m. "Quantitative Knowledge for Environmental Policy Design."

Speakers:

Bruce McCarl, Texas A&M University

Raghavan Srinivasan, Texas A&M University

Chuck Rice, Kansas State

Richard Just, University of Maryland

Questions:

 What are the implications of new information technology for the design of public policy? What information should we be collecting?
What indicators or standards should we use to measure success?
This session should integrate knowledge from social and natural sciences. Includes discussion of the National Research Indicators and the CAGMS effort.

3:00-3:15 p.m.: BREAK

3:15-4:45 p.m.: "Integrating Environmental Objectives in the Farm Policy Debate: Some Conceptual and Political Economic Issues"

Speakers:

Craig Cox, Executive Vice President, Soil and Water Conservation Society

John Miranowski, Iowa State University

Bruce Gardner, University of Maryland

Dave Stawick, National Conservation Buffer Initiative

Questions:

What should the objectives be for agricultural conservation policy, e.g., results-oriented, measureable, landscape-scale improvements versus farm-level?
What are political or institutional constraints that may need to be factored in?
Should farmers be encouraged to be "profit-maximizers" rather than "cost-minimizers?"

4:45-5:45 p.m.: DISCUSSION

Friday June 29

8:00-8:40 am: "Introduction and Overview"

Speakers:

David Zilberman, UC Berkeley

Joel Hirschhorn, National Governors Association

8:40-9:30 am:

Speaker:

Ryan Weston, House Agricultural Committee

9:30 -10:30 am: "Alternative Design of the Environmental Component of the Farm Bill"

Speakers:

David Zilberman, University of California at Berkeley

Bruce Babcock, Iowa State University

Questions:

 What are different ways to conceptualize the program in order to estimate costs?
How can targeting be used to achieve greater economic efficiency?
How can we design a program to achieve multiple environmental objectives?

This session will address alternative mechanisms for allocating environmental amenities under alternative assumptions regarding the overall Farm Bill and outlay to be used mainly for environmental purposes.

10:30-10:45 a.m.: BREAK

10:45-Noon: "Learning from the Past: Lessons on adoption, Enforcement and Monitoring from Previous Programs"

Speakers:

Doug Beegle, Penn State University

David Sunding, University of California at Berkeley

Ron Jones, Texas Institute for Applied Economic Research

Ed Rall, USDA

Questions:

 What are the lessons from past programs?
How successful has enforcement been of the conservation provisions of the farm bill?
How much flexibility can be given?
Did the loosening of rules in the 1996 farm bill result in less conservation?
Should the rules be tightened?

Fundamentally, what existing programs or proposals are available to model a conservation payment program on and how successful have they been? This session identifies success stories and failures.



12:00-1:30 p.m.: LUNCH

Speaker: Brigadier General (USA-Retired) Gerry Galloway, Secretary, US Section, International Joint Commission



1:30-3:00 p.m.: "Panel Discussion on Implementation Issues"

Speakers:

Andy Manale, Henry A. Wallace Center

Richard Duesterhaus, NACD

Stan Johnson, Iowa State University

Daryl Buchholz, Kansas State University

Questions:

 How should institutional constraints affect the design of policy?
What should the performance measures be?
What are considerations regarding national versus local funding decisions?
How should or do political or institutional constraints affect successful program implementation?

3:00-3:15 p.m.:BREAK

3:15-5:00 p.m.:FINAL DISCUSSION

Speaker: Include panelists from previous panels along with

Jean-Mari Peltier, EPA

Bill Richards, Farmer, Former Chief, National Resources Conservation Service

This final session should serve to introduce political reality into discussion.