Productivity of Diverted Cropland

Excerpts from the report Introduction: Land withdrawal provisions have been an integral part of farm programs since the passage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. The purpose of these provisions is to curtail land as a factor of production and reduce total output from U.S. farms. In 1966, nearly 63 million acres of cropland were not being used for production because of diversion under Government programs. This amounted to about 19 percent of the total land allocated for crops. Acreage diverted is usually the marginal land on each farm participating in the programs. Some of the land is diverted because yields are lowest. Other land is diverted because production costs are high due to such factors as small, steep, or irregularly shaped fields, great distance from the farmstead, and high fertilizer requirements. Thus, for a given area or region, the diverted acreage is expected to be somewhat less productive than the acreage in crops. But just how productive would this large diverted acreage be if it were returned to cultivation? This is a critical question for those concerned with future food and fiber needs and our capacity to meet them. The present study developed an estimate of relative productivity by comparing the average productivity per acre of cropland diverted in 1966 with the average productivity of cropland in production. In making this estimate, we considered two sources of variation: (a) An intrafarm differential, which exists because fields within a farm have different levels of productivity and (b) an interfarm (or interlocation) differential, because the general level of productivity changes from one area to the next and because the proportion of cropland diverted may differ by area. Analytic methods were developed to capture both effects. However, the analysis could reflect the intrafarm effect only to the extent that data were available to measure it.