ADDRESSING INFORMATION NEEDS TO SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE POLICIES

Policy makers are more willing to adopt changes when the benefits of the change are clearly documented. The 1977 National Resources Inventory (NRI) and the dramatic changes it helped bring about is an example of the power of information in facilitating environmental policy innovation for agriculture. Multibillion-dollar conservation programs now address soil erosion in the United States in a relatively strategic and technically sophisticated way. This greater integration between farm policy and environmental policy has had an impact on commodity policies for agriculture, which have been modified in an attempt to avoid barriers to sustainable agriculture crop rotations. However, identifying the benefits of sustainable farming systems presents a greater research challenge than the soil conservation studies that used the NRI. The rewards for policy-oriented ecological research are great because many opportunities remain for U.S. and world agriculture to become more supportive of environmental and ecological goals while simultaneously meeting farmer and consumer needs.