Performance-based incentives for agricultural pollution control: identifying and assessing performance measures in the United States

Current federal and state soil and water conservation programs consist primarily of cost-sharing or compensating farmers for implementing a set of pre-defined best management practices. This approach does not consider specific environmental outcomes or the cost-effectiveness of the program at the farm or watershed level. Performance-based incentives are payments that are attached to a specified environmental performance measure, for example a reduction in nutrient, sediment, pesticide, or bacteria loss from a field, or reduction in loading at the mouth of a watershed. Assessing environmental performance requires the definition of a performance measure, which is used to calculate resulting incentive payments. In this paper, we discuss [...]