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Abstract
Many facets of the environment have suffered as a result of the expansion and intensification of agriculture. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) facilitates the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) which seeks to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture by paying rental payments for agricultural producers to take environmentally sensitive land out of production and reestablish them in a vegetation that helps conserve various natural resources. However, many producers are unaware of the spatial eligibility of CRP practices and of the economic outcome of removing land from production. We utilized precision agriculture technology to create a geospatial Decision Support Tool (DST) that addresses these concerns. We demonstrate the functionality of the DST and its application on a study farm. We also show how remote sensing technology can be integrated into this framework. Results demonstrate that targeted conservation enrollment can be profitable for producers.