Land-Use Change Decisions: Motivations In The Eastern Dakotas

By Tong Wang

SDSU Extension Advanced Production Specialist

There has been moderate to extensive land use conversion activity in the Western Corn Belt, where corn and soybeans are the dominant cropland use. To understand motivations of land use change from producers’ perspective, a survey on land operators’ views was carried out in east river South Dakota and North Dakota in spring 2015 (Wang et al., 2017). The motivators for land use choice from the producers’ perspective were ranked in Figure 1, which showed the average rating of the 1026 respondents.

Motivational Factors

Depending on the impact of the issue being asked, there are generally three different levels of farmers’ responses to these issues: 1) low impact (value = 1); 2) medium impact (value = 2), and 3) high impact (value = 3).

Figure 1. Ranking of motivators for land use change.



Prices and Yields

Economic returns directly affect land use decisions (Rashford et al., 2010). Not surprisingly, among all motivators listed, crop prices, input market prices and improved crop yields were regarded by producers as the three most important influences on land use decisions (Figure 1).

Table 1 indicates that farm location, operation size, ownership status and land slope had strong influences on several declared motives for land use change (Table 1).  For producers located further north and with more percentage of land rented, crop prices and input prices had higher impact on their land use decisions. Older producers and producers with steeper sloped* farms, on the contrary, were less likely to be motivated by the price factors to make land use change decisions. When larger farm sizes, producers were more likely to view improved crop yields as a key determinant of land use decisions.

Table 1. Factors that affect Land Use Decision Motivators.

Cropping equipment, pest management, crop insurance policy, and climate patterns

Efficient crop equipment was ranked as the 4th most important motivators (Figure 1), followed after prices and yields. For farms located further north and of a larger size, the role of efficient equipment became more pronounced (Table 1).

Pest management was more concerned by farms of a larger size when making land use decisions. Similar to Meehan et al. (2015), who found positive relationship between pest abundance and landscape simplicity, we also found pest management was more of a concern when moving towards the east, where more land is covered by harvested cropland (Wang et al., 2017).

Table 1 also indicated the role of crop insurance policy was more likely a strong motivator for farms of larger size when making land use change decisions. However, crop insurance policy was generally not a key factor to consider for farms on steeper slopes.  For farms located further north, changing climate patterns means warmer growing environment for corn, thus were viewed as more influential on land use change. For farms on steeper slopes, however, changing climate patterns was less likely to impact land use change decisions.

Wildlife habitat, labor availability and drought-tolerant seed

Wildlife habitat, labor availability and drought-tolerant seed received least attention when making land use decisions (Figure 1). For producers located further west where more land is under grass, improving wildlife habitat was more likely to be considered as an important motivator for land use decisions, as indicated by Table 1.