A review of land utilization in the US: Agricultural and forestry land use competition

The domination of forestland and forest policies by agriculture is a major problem in the U.S. Historically, forestland presented a formidable obstacle that had to be overcome if farming was to take place. Thus, forestland was converted to agricultural land. Forestland was cleared and put into production of agricultural commodities. Therefore, it can be shown that there is a relationship between agricultural land use and forestland use. This relationship has shown forest use to be a weak competitor for agricultural land. This study traces out the historical interactions between agricultural and forestry policies. Trends in agricultural and forestry land use are identified and related to specific policies and/or institutional connections.