Land-Use Policy and Farmland Retention: The United States' Experience

Excerpts from the report: The arguments for and against increased public governance of the use of private lands are not addressed in this report. Rather, the report assumes the need for better land resource protection programs and, more specifically, that conversion of agricultural lands to other uses should be by deliberate choice rather than by default. This is not to say, however, that the case for increased public intervention has been fully developed and is overwhelmingly strong. The lack of conclusive research results on the value to society of farmland and open-space retention has been an important impediment to decisive public action. Difficult land-use policy choices will not be made until we go beyond intuition and rhetoric and provide detailed scientific evidence on the social costs of public inaction.