Three essays on environmental conservation and wildlife in the market place: A case of winter flooded rice in Mississippi

Competitive market pressures and pursuit of profitability have driven farmers to become dependent on agrochemical inputs and intensive cultivation of land. These practices are associated with environmental quality degradation and are recognized as an important target for agricultural and environmental policy in the United States. However, agricultural production provides environmental benefits such as rural landscape amenities and habitat for plants and wildlife. This collection of essays attempts to investigate economic profitability and environmental benefits of adopting winter flooding as an income enhancement mechanism as well as a conservation strategy among rice producers in the Mississippi Delta.;In first essay, a biophysical-optimization model is developed to evaluate the on-farm cost of controlling nonpoint pollution (NPP) through winter flooding practices in the Mississippi Delta. The model estimates the amount of land to be allocated for rice production, as well as acreage of land to be winter-flooded, to obtain optimal profit. The optimal solution suggesting that farms practicing winter flooding will be more profitable than those practicing conventional rice cultivation, and land productivity is significantly affected by conservation practices adopted by farmers. Similarly, environmental regulation will impose opportunity costs in terms of foregone profits.;In the second essay, a nonmarket valuation technique is used to derive consumer surplus from flooding of agricultural land. The primary variables of interest include own price, income and prices of substitutes. The consumer surplus obtained from the model provides estimates of leasing winter-flooded rice fields, for waterfowl hunting. The study uses seemingly related regression (SUR) to test for endogeneity problems related to the travel cost model, which has implications for the value of estimated consumer surplus.;The third essay investigates the socioeconomic characteristics of farmers who choose to adopt winter-flooding practices. Economic variables such as yield are positively associated with flooding, while operating costs deter farmers from adopting the practices. The estimation results suggest that some of the variables used in the model can provide policy-relevant information to promote the advantages of winter flooding over conventional rice cultivation.