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Abstract
Agricultural land provides a variety of " nonmarket" services to the Commonwealth,
including wildlife habitat, scenic vistas, and recreation . This study utilizes an iterative
bidding game to estimate willingness-to-pay of residents of three central Massachusetts
counties to preserve state agricultural land. Through the use of these data, estimates of
the value of these nonmarket amenities are derived so that a fuUer measure of the value
of agricultural land can be obtained. This information may be useful to policy makers
administering such programs as the Agricultural Preservation Restriction Act (Chapter
780) which are designed to arrest the conversion of Massachusetts farmland to urban
uses.