Content area
Abstract
The United States Department of Agriculture is administering a program which is intended to reduce soil erosion. This program is known as Targeting. To date, no evaluation of the Targeting program has been conducted. The purpose of An Economic Analysis of the USDA Targeting Program is to render an evaluative criteria and to conduct an evaluation of Targeting.
The institutional theory of value, the habit theory of human behavior and the Veblenian dichotomy provide the intellectual framework of inquiry. This framework is specified early in the study as it pertains to the entire inquiry. The theory of value is developed with the end in view of extracting the evaluative criteria.
There are many components interacting in the institutional context of soil conservation. The theory of value requires that this context should be specified because the consequences of the components for the continuity of the community are established as the evaluative criteria. Therefore this context is specified so that the broadest consequences for Targeting and the community can be known.
Next, the methods of the process evaluation and the bivariate analysis are detailed. The data to which these methods are applied include an extensive USDA Targeting survey, the Agricultural Conservation Program documents, and Congressional and other documents.
The inquiry then analyses all the relevant components of the conservation context and ties them into a consolidated evaluation. The upshot of the evaluation is that Targeting represents a large ceremonial output of the USDA, but cannot be expected to have a large instrumental impact on soil erosion.
Recommendations offered include increasing both the national priority and budget accorded to soil conservation. Also recommended are increases in farm incomes and mandatory cross-compliance.
