commercially significant species as mink, beaver, raccoon, red fox, muskrat, 

 rabbit, deer, sharptail grouse, and ringneck pheasant. They may also provide 

 major nonmarket hydrologic benefits through groundwater recharge and storage 

 functions, as well as flood amelioration benefits. However, only 25% of the 

 Nation's original wetland endowment remains. 



The authors use a farm simulation computer model to examine the relative 

 magnitudes of the change in the after tax net present value from pursuing two 

 types of management policies for farms of various (hypothetical) sizes and types. 

 The model is called the Farm Level Income and Policy Simulation Model (FLIPSIM). 

 The simulation procedure incorporates the influence of a number of random factors 

 {such as the weather) as well as the impact of the policy variables in question 

 on the net present value of the farms. The simulation runs covered a 10-year 

 planning horizon; the financial position at the end of one year is the financial 

 position for the start of the next year. The two policy alternatives involve 

 draining or not draining an on-farm prairie pothole. However, the most striking 

 effects of the swampbuster provisions are not directed by the policy menus, 

 because the farmer who drains cannot participate in aM Federal farm programs. 

 The FLIPSIM model used by McColloch et al . examines a one-program-deleted-at-a- 

 time scenario in which the farmer is not a participant in each of five Federal 

 farm programs considered, but is a participant in the other four programs 

 considered. 



The five programs include Federal farm income tax provisions, disaster 

 insurance and assistance programs, subsidized loan programs, wetland acreage 

 conservation programs (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Easement Program, as 

 well as the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service Water Bank 

 Program), and the price support program. In every case, drainage yields a 

 greater after tax net present value than wetland preservation combined with 

 participation in all five of the Federal farm programs. Recall, however, that 

 the likely impact of swampbuster is the loss of participation in all five of the 

 extant programs, and this alternative was not examined in the simulation runs. 

 One of the programs (the special wetland drainage tax provisions) was already 

 defunct by the time that this paper was published. Apparently, the model was 

 run before the passage of the Reagan tax reform bill in 1986 (or at least before 

 tax code provisions favoring drainage investment were altered). 



82. Bardecki, M.J. 1988. Impacts of agricultural land drainage on wetlands: 

 a geographical appraisal. Pages 15-21 in P.J. Stuber, coordinator. 

 Proceedings of the national symposium on protection of wetlands from 

 agricultural impacts. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Report 

 88(16). Washington, DC. 221 pp. 



Two Provincial acts regulate the construction and maintenance of drainage 

 works in the Canadian Province of Ontario. These are the Tile Drainage Act and 

 the Drainage Act. Each provides for partial subsidization of private drainage 

 investment. The Tile Drainage Act provides farmers who wish to drain their wet 

 soils and wetlands with low cost loans. The loans are financed through the sale 

 of debentures by the Province; the demand for the debentures varies with the 

 robustness of the farm sector of the Provincial economy. The Province directly 

 subsidizes one-third of the total cost of drainage investment under the 

 provisions of Ontario's Drainage Act. 



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