Natural Resource Management in Agriculture: An Institutional Analysis of the 1985 Farm Bill
American agriculture is increasingly a reflection of the institutional structure of its federal legislation. For many farm enterprises, the institutional design of the Food Security Act (the Farm Bill) can determine, or at least greatly influence enterprise survival. This has come to be the case for many agricultural commodities and has, as a result, generated special interest support for design of the institutional framework of the Farm Bill. The 1985 federal Farm Bill has, however, evolved beyond objectives linked to maintaining farm income, and added an additional dimension to its institutional design by specifying clear linkages between natural resource management practices and eligibility for agricultural program benefits. This article reviews some of the key institutional foundations of the federal Farm Bill legislation and analyzes its evolution to include stipulation of cross-compliance between prescribed natural resource management strategies and agricultural production practices. Incentives for provisions to limit sodbusting, swampbusting, and establishment of the conservation reserve are analyzed as an evolution of the traditional components of the conservation title, response to non-traditional interest group input, and acknowledgement of the environmental effects