Land Use Dynamics Involving Forestland : Trends in the U

Since 1952, U.S. timberland has decreased by about 20 million acres, with about one-quarter of the reduction in the South. Although some of the timberland has been converted to urban and developed uses, Larger amounts of land shifted uses between forest and agriculture because of changes in product markets and policy conditions. We summarize area trends for major land uses, examine recent policy and market developments that ~arelikely to alter competition for land among sectors, and look at related issues such as likely implications of the recent Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996. INTRODUCTION Land resources play a fundamental role in our economic system. Shifts in land uses are influenced by changes in expected economic returns, and expected economic returns are influenced by supply and demand equihbria in land markets. Land-use changes for the two largest uses of land in tire United States--forestry and agriculture--can involve miJiions of acres annuaJly, affecting a number of land-based attributes that include wildlife habitat, rates of soil erosion, recreation and environmental amenities, and carbon sequestration. Agriculture and forestry have both lost land to urbanization and infrastructural development over the past several decades, but historical land base changes are dominated by shifts between the two sectors (Vesterby et al. 1994). Land use changes are primarily a product of private investment decisions, but public policies have also played an important role. Some programs have directlyinfluencedlandreallocationbetweensectors: the Soil Bank of the late 1950’s. and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) of Farm BiJls in the 1980s and 1990s. Agricultural programs with other v objectives have indirectly affected land use. Although some key trends in land use h&e persisted since the turn of the century, several short term deviations are linked to exogenous events outside of the agriculture or forest sectors. This paper summarizes the recent Jand area trends and short term deviations that have resulted from competition for land among sectors in the U.S. economy, and assesses the implications of recent changes in policy. These analyses support the 1999 RPA Assessment, which will update earlier area projections by region, private forest ownership, and forest type (e.g., Alig and Wear 1992). AREA TRENDS FOR MAJOR LAND USES From 1800 to 1930, U.S. forestland declined by 300-350 million acres (Clawson 1979). Thii reduction was partiiy due to an excess supply of timber in some cases, and prices for cleared Iand that sometimes exceeded those for forested land of similar quality. Some of the converted forestland was employed for urban and inl?astructural developments, but most was cleared and converted to agriculture. These land use changes reflected federal policies of the time to transfer the original public domain to private ownerships and to expand agricultural production. With the public domain disposal, establishment of permanent federal forest, reserves, conversion of most .suitable non-government forest lands to some form of cropping or pasture, and dramatic improvements in agricultural productivity, the net movement of land between forestry and agriculture has become far less .marked. Between 1945 and 1992, U.S. cropland area increased by about 2 percent, pastureland area decreased by 11 percent, forestland gea decreased by 7 percent, -and area in urban/developed uses increased by more than 285 percent (USDA ERS 1995). Altbough the pre-1930 trends in intersectoral Land shifts havemoderated, ~raI Iand use remains mutable in the short-term, with substantial acreages shifting back and forth between uses. Over the last forty years an average of 1.8 million ages per year of cropland and the same area of pastureland have been transferred either into or out of the agricultural base, while 1.5 millioh acres per year have moved in and out of forestry (USDA ERS 1995). Although about a,thiid of newly converted urban land came from. cropland and pastureland (Vesterby et al. 1994), the majority of land use changes were within and between the forest and agriculture sectors, and mostly on nonindustrial private ‘Research Former, USDAForest Service, Patic Northwest Research Station; 3200 SW Jefferson Way, Corval& Oregon 9733 1; Associate Professor, Department of AgriculturalEconorn& Oklahoma S tate University 3 14 Agricultural Hall, Stillwater, Oklahoma, 74708; Economist, USDA Forest Service; 3041 Cornwallis Road, RTF’, NC 27709.