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Abstract
Over the last 30 years, the Alberta Capital Region (the City of Edmonton and 23
surrounding cities, towns, villages and municipal districts) has experienced rapid
population growth, economic development, and conversion of agricultural land into
alternative land uses. As a result, some of the province’s most productive farmland
has been converted into residential and industrial development. Between 2000 and
2012, growth rates for population and developed areas in Alberta Capital Region are
approximately 30% and 50%, respectively. For all newly added developed areas,
almost 90% were converted from agricultural land (Haarsma, 2014). Concerns about
the pace and pattern of development and conversion have thus led to the creation of
the Capital Region Board in 2009 and the provincial Land Use Framework in 2008.
Despite the historical rates of conversion and the policy attention it has prompted,
little research has been conducted to examine what values are being lost as a result of
agricultural land conversion. This research has thus been undertaken to assess the
multiple values of land in agricultural uses in the Alberta Capital Region, Canada.
Some values (e.g., the market value of agricultural commodities) accrue mainly
to private individuals and firms, while others (e.g., biodiversity conservation values)
accrue to society in general. Values of some agricultural uses, such as those
associated with the production of “local food”, regulation of water and air quality, or
maintenance of peri-urban green spaces, may be weighed very differently by different
interest groups. Based on existing literature, we extend the valuation with an
application of ecosystem goods and services that Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
(2005) proposes.
The objectives of the study are three-fold: (1) Estimate values that residents in
the region place on conserving land in different agricultural uses; (2) Explore the links
between those values and residents’ affinity with different ecosystem goods and
services; and (3) Identify areas and strategies that are of particular interest to the
public for conservation in agricultural uses.
The study began with a series of focus groups. Three focus group discussions
were held with selected experts to define the context, scope and objectives of the
empirical study, and one focus group with a random selection of study area residents
to pre-test the survey. The second part of the study involved an internet-based survey
with a panel of Alberta Capital Region residents recruited by the survey firm,
Qualtrics. The survey instrument includes background information on the respondents’
attitudes toward conservation, and an attribute-based choice experiment. This method
defines non-market valuation such as the values of environmental goods or services in
terms of various attributes including price, and then assesses the respondents’
Willingness To Pay (WTP) for specific bundles of attributes (Grafton et al. 2003). The
choice experiments ask respondents to consider an alternative conservation strategy
for land in a specific agricultural use, in a specific type of area, with a specific cost, as
opposed to the status quo that would result in no policy change.
The conceptual model is derived from the standard random utility specification
in which utility is divided into observable and unobservable components (Hanemann
1984). In the model, utility contains a deterministic component that consists of the
observable attributes (In our case, that is, type of agricultural use, acres conserved,
adjacent area, location proximity, and one-time cost), and a random unobservable
component. The empirical estimation starts with a simple Multinomial Logit Model.
We also use a Multinominal Logit Model with interaction terms to evaluate the effects
of individual characteristics such as gender, residence, shopping behaviors, and
attitudes towards government policies. More advanced models, such as Latent Class
Model and Random Parameter Model, are also estimated to provide further insight
into heterogeneity.
This research contributes to identifying agricultural regions of outstanding
conservation values so that they can be protected against future land conversion. The
results indicate that relative to land adjacent to primary highways, land adjacent to
conservation buffers is generally preferred for conservation in agricultural uses.
Additionally, residents place higher values on land within a 10-kilometer buffer to
currently developed areas over land within city limits. Regarding agricultural uses,
livestock grazing on native pasture has the highest values, with hay land ranking
second. Values for vegetable farms vary from group to group, and residents who do
not typically get food from farmers’ markets, community gardens or farms have the
lowest WTP for vegetable farms. Women generally place considerably higher value
on farmland conservation than men. Residence, whether the respondents are from
Edmonton or surrounding counties, does not seem to make a difference on values of
land in agricultural uses. Furthermore, concerns for local food production, water
purification and air quality are the top reasons for conserving land in agricultural uses.
Further research in this study will use the welfare measure from the WTP
estimation in cost-benefit analyses to inform decisions on land use changes, including
the creation, restoration and compensation of agricultural or natural areas. The
non-market values of ecosystem goods and services associated with different
agricultural uses can also be compared to the financial costs of such projects. Local
governments have already expressed interest in those analyses.