A review of land utilization in the US: Agricultural and forestry land usecompetition

The domination of forestland and forest policies by agriculture is a major problem in the U.S. Historically, forestland presented a formidable obstacl e that had to be overcome if farming was to take place. Thus, forestland wa s converted to agricultural land. Forestland was cleared and put into produ ction of agricultural commodities. Therefore, it can be shown that there is a relationship between agricultural land use and forestland use. This rela tionship has shown forest use to be a weak competitor for agricultural land . This study traces out the historical interactions between agricultural an d forestry policies. Trends in agricultural and forestry land use are ident ified and related to specific policies and/or institutional connections.