Effect of Contract Attribute Levels on Willingness to Participate in a Working Wetlands Program

Abstract

Wetlands are an integral part of duck habitat in the Prairie Pothole Region, which covers three Canadian provinces and five U.S. states. They often overlap with cropland, creating issues for farmers. A program that provided funding to farmers who agree to not alter wetlands and continue to farm the land was introduced in North Dakota called the Working Wetlands Program. After four years, participating farmers were surveyed. A choice experiment was used to investigate the effect of program contract attributes including payment, length, and whether the contract is binding, on willingness to enroll. A random parameters logit model was estimated. Nonbinding contracts are preferred to binding regardless of other attributes. If it is important that the contract be binding, notable for policymakers is that shorter lengths have a higher participation rate than longer lengths. This information is valuable to policymakers as they continue to build a national program.