Agricultural landowners’ response to incentives for afforestation

• We examine landowners’ response to an incentive program for afforestation.
• We use a stated preference approach to examine landowners’ enrollment decisions.
• Incentive payments positively affect landowners’ level of enrollment.
• We simulate the cost of achieving different levels of carbon sequestration.
• The estimated carbon cost is higher than that from other approaches.

Previous research has shown that afforestation of agricultural land is a relatively low-cost option compared to energy-based approaches for mitigating net carbon dioxide emissions, and that financial incentives affect landowner behavior and can be used to increase carbon sequestration on private land. In this paper we use stated preference data from private landowners in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S. to examine the key factors affecting participation in an incentive program for carbon sequestration through afforestation. We also estimate the corresponding potential for carbon sequestration and its cost. Our results suggest that incentive payments would significantly and positively affect landowners’ level of enrollment in a tree planting program.