Between Soil and Society: Legislative History and Political Development of Farm Bill Conservation Policy

The United States spends approximately ＄5 billion each year on federal programs designed to conserve natural resources and address the environmental consequences of modern agricultural production. Like farm policy, agricultural conservation policy is rooted in the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal efforts of the 1930s. Farm conservation policy has waxed and waned since then, related to fluctuating economic and environmental concerns.

In Between Soil and Society Jonathan Coppess traces the history and development of U.S. conservation policy, especially as it compares to and interacts with the development of farm policy. By answering questions about the differences in political support and development for these similar policy regimes, with efforts to apply legal and political theory to understand the differences, Coppess considers the implications of climate change and lessons for future policy development. One of the few books to make sense of the legal and economic analysis of agricultural conservation policy, Between Soil and Society provides a window into larger issues of American politics, governance, and policy development.

Jonathan Coppess is an associate professor of agricultural policy and law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He previously served as chief counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, as well as administrator and deputy administrator for farm programs for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Coppess is the author of The Fault Lines of Farm Policy: A Legislative and Political History of the Farm Bill (Nebraska, 2018).