The decline in acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) since 2007 while corn ethanol production increased has raised concerns about the indirect land use change effects of biofuel production in the US. However, the extent to which this decline in CRP acres can be causally attributed to increased ethanol production is yet to be determined. Using a dynamic, partial equilibrium economic model for the US agricultural sector we find that doubling of corn ethanol production over the 2007-2012 period (holding all else constant) led to the conversion of 3.2 million acres of marginal land, including 1 million acres in CRP, to crop production. While substantial in magnitude, we find that this represented 13% and 16% of the reduction in all marginal acres and in CRP acres, respectively, that would have occurred in the counterfactual baseline over the 2007-2012 period. We also find that the land use change per million gallons of corn ethanol has declined non-linearly from 453 acres to 112 acres over the 2007-2012 period.
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