Data from: Improving Ecosystem Services from US Agriculture: Yield Reserve vs. Land Retirement

The dataset is used to populate the Regional Environment and Agriculture Programming (REAP) model, a partial equilibrium model developed by USDA’s Economic Research Service (Johannson, Peters, and House, 2007). The REAP model maximizes net welfare (producer plus consumer surplus) from production of crops, livestock, and processed products subject to land supply constraints and production balance requirements. REAP is a price-endogenous model with prices determined by the intersection of demand and supply curves. The model divides the U.S. into ten farm production regions (FPRs). The U.S. is further subdivided into 48 regions which are formed by the intersection of FPRs with land resource regions (LRRs) defined by the Natural Resources Conservation Service of USDA. These regions are further divided into 273 LRR-HUC units, which are intersections with watershed HUC (Hydrologic Unit Codes) boundaries. Many but not all LRR-HUC units are further subdivided into highly erodible land (HEL) and non-highly erodible land. In total there are 456 combinations of LRR-HUCS with HEL or non-HEL land. Crop production is assumed to be homogeneous within each LRR-HUC-HEL or non-HEL unit. The basic decision unit in REAP is the crop rotation made up of some combination of 10 field crops (barley, corn, cotton, hay, oats, rice, silage, sorghum, soybeans, and wheat). The model is initialized with the observed rotations from the National Resources Inventory. The model is calibrated to a baseline of year 2030 mainly based on USDA Agricultural Projections to 2030. Reference: Johannson, R., M. Peters and R. House 2007. Regional environment and agriculture programming model, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service: 1-111.