The cost of clearing the land (under most circumstances) was tax 

 deductible, as were many of the drainage costs, when Heimlich wrote this paper. 

 Heimlich provides an instructive hypothetical example in which almost one-third 

 of the per acre $900 loss in farm income from application of the swampbuster 

 sanctions to a farm in the North Carolina pocosins is offset by the tax shelter 

 provisions favoring farm drainage investment. Tax code changes that remove 

 provisions favoring drainage investment were instituted shortly after Heimlich 

 wrote this article. 



76. Heimlich, R.E., and L.L. Langner. 1986. Swampbusting: wetland conversion 

 and farm programs. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research 

 Service Agricultural Report No. 551, 7 pp. Washington, DC. 



Conversion and drainage of wetlands to farmland is called "swampbusting." 

 Under the swampbuster provisions of the Food Security Act of 1985, farmers who 

 grow agricultural crops on converted wetlands will be denied all Federal farm 

 program benefits. Agricultural conversion was responsible for the loss of 12 

 million wetland acres during the 20-year period between the mid-1950's and mid- 

 1970's. The authors use farm simulation calculations to show that the 

 swampbuster legislation will slow the rate of conversion. The problem is that 

 the deceleration induced by swampbuster in the conversion rate may not be 

 socially significant. If the conversion costs are high (as they would be for 

 the pocosins of North Carolina), the sanctions will have less bite than for low- 

 cost conversions. Low conversion costs are still typical of prairie pothole 

 conversions. 



77. Maltby, E. 1986. Waterlogged wealth: why waste the world's wetplaces. 

 International Institute for Environment and Development, London, England. 

 198 pp. 



Many of Europe's wetlands have been lost to conversion and drainage by 

 humans. Maltby asserts that European wetlands provide flood control, groundwater 

 recharge, pollution reduction, and recreation sites. He examines the role of 

 subsidization of private wetland conversion activity by various European 

 governments. 



78. Nelson, R.W. 1986. Wetlands policy crisis: United States and United 

 Kingdom. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 18:95-121. 



This article offers little economic analysis, and the economic data on U.K. 

 and U.S. wetlands is scattered and piecemeal. The main thrust of the article 

 is to show that recent legislation regulating conversion and drainage of wetlands 

 is watered-down by a broad gamut of governmental and bureaucratic attitudes and 

 practices that usually lie outside the regulatory framework of the legislation. 

 Moreover, while the U.S. Federal Government has dismantled many of the programs 

 of the past that subsidized agricultural drainage of wetlands and replaced them 

 with legislation and regulations that provide stiff disincentives to farmers who 

 might drain their wetlands, the U.K. still has little legislation that 

 discourages wetland drainage. 



The most interesting economic data cited by Nelson show that the rate of 

 return on drainage investment by U.K. farmers is still remarkably high (35%-65% 



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