Photo: Potato fields, Driggs, Idaho. © 2018 Delena Norris-Tull
The Dust Bowl Re-visited
Summaries of research and commentary prepared by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull, Professor Emerita of Science Education, University of Montana Western, July 2020.
“Every man of discernment, while walking upon the earth, feeleth indeed abashed, inasmuch as he is fully aware that the thing which is the source of his prosperity, his wealth, his might, his exaltation, his advancement and power is, as ordained by God, the very earth which is trodden beneath the feet of all men.” - Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 44.
The Dust Bowl
For those of us too young to have experienced the Dust Bowl, it is impossible to imagine the devastating effects caused by the loss of millions of acres of topsoil in the 1930s. The causes of the Dust Bowl can be summed up as poor agricultural practices and short-sighted Federal policies.
A series of Federal Homestead Acts, from 1862 to 1909, provided acreage to settlers, to encourage the settling of Western States. Unfortunately, many of those who took up the challenge were inexperienced farmers. Lack of scientific knowledge of ecological systems, and lack of knowledge of dryland farming techniques, resulted in intensive cultivation of marginal lands, much of which had little access to irrigation. From western Oklahoma and Texas and further west, farmers are lucky to have more than 20 inches of rain per year. In addition, the Western States experience high winds much of the year.
Rising wheat prices and increased demand for wheat from Europe during World War I contributed to farmers replacing millions of acres of natural prairie grasslands with wheat, corn, and other grains. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the price of grains dropped. Farmers in the Great Plains responded by plowing up greater and greater acreages, in evermore marginal lands.
Severe drought hit the Midwest and the Southern Great Plains in the 1930s and continued for much of the decade. Crop failures resulted in many farmers, particularly in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, abandoning their farms, leaving the land bare. With the loss of the native grasses, that previously had held the soil in place, massive soil erosion occurred. Massive dust storms carried even more soil away. Economically devastated farm families fled further west, resulting in the largest migration in U.S. history. It is estimated that 35 million acres of farmland became unusable by 1934, with soil loss affecting another 125 million acres by the end of the 1930s (“Dust Bowl,” on History.com, Oct. 27, 2009).
The poor agricultural practices that contributed to the Dust Bowl included: conversion of millions of acres from livestock production to wheat growing, leading to the removal of native prairie grasses whose roots hold water and hold the soil, deep plowing of the topsoil, and the newly available mechanized farm equipment, especially the combine harvester.
After the drought years, early in the 1940s, massive areas of tree windbreaks were planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps, to protect soils and crops from high winds. Farmers were encouraged to use contour plowing and no-till farming, to reduce soil erosion. And when wheat prices soared in the early 1940s, millions more acres of land were converted to wheat production.
In addition, about four million acres of failed farmlands were purchased by the Federal government and planted in native prairie grasses, to form the National Grasslands.
But farming reforms were not always readily adopted by farmers. Jim Pike, District Conservationist for the NRCS Laramie County Field Office, told me that a number of veterans of World War II received free land from the Federal government in 100-acre parcels in the West. Many of these new farmers had no previous farming experience, and thus often lacked the knowledge of how to implement the farming practices that would best conserve the soil. In reading accounts from these veterans, he noted that they seemed to have no weed problems for a long time. That was when the land still had a decent organic layer. As that layer wasted away, weeds began invading.
Jim Pike also commented, “In the inter-mountain region, from Texas to Canada, most dryland wheat farming is not economically feasible without government subsidies. So, except in a few places, such as the Golden Triangle in north-central Montana, we are keeping the wheat farms in operation artificially. If we could gradually phase out or reduce the subsidies, while assisting a return to livestock production, I believe the farmers would have a chance to become financially independent. Some federal subsidies or land leases may still be needed.
“If we use the funds to revegetate with native seeds, we can eventually restore the land, create a carbon sink, to get organics back in the soil, and go back to livestock grazing.”
Another event that changed farming in the West was the ability to extract massive amounts of water from underground aquifers, in particular the Ogallala Aquifer. The inexpensive cost of natural gas facilitated underground water extraction. This began the era of large-scale irrigation in the West. This allowed farmers to grow crops that used more water. Corn for livestock feed, became a widespread crop as a result (“The Dustbowl,” a film by Ken Burns).
Ironically, the rapid expansion of invasive plants in the West has had a positive impact on the use of farming techniques that aid with soil conservation. In my 2017 interview with Phil Westra, Weed Scientist from Colorado State University, told me, “During my career, I’ve seen a massive shift in crop tilling practices. While in the past, farmers would till the soil deeply after the harvest, now there is minimal till or reduced till, due to the need to reduce the use of herbicides. Weed management is being threatened by the evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds…. 85-90% of crop land is now managed with reduced till.”
John Samson, Agronomist for the Wyoming Department of Transportation, had worked for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service (now the NRCS) until Federal budget cuts of the 1990s forced him into early retirement from the USDA. He pointed out that the big budget cuts, that had enabled the Clinton Administration to balance the US budget, had an unintended consequence. The loss of large numbers of career professionals resulted in what might be called a “brain-drain.” Much institutional memory was lost at that time. This resulted in the eventual hire of many new, younger employees who, as knowledgeable as they might be in their respective fields, lacked the knowledge of what agricultural practices had been most effective in preserving the soil and soil nutrients, particularly in the years following the Great Depression.
During the Trump Administration, we saw another major out-migration from many Federal agencies, including many of the researchers with the knowledge of effective farming practices, and along with them, much knowledge of what works, and even more importantly, what doesn’t work, to conserve the land.
The road to progress in conservation agriculture is slow. Educating farmers to change their practices is challenging. The following excerpt from archival minutes of the 1942 Western Weed Conference shows how little was understood in the decade following the Dust Bowl years: “There are three types of crops we can use on weed infested land. One possibility is a crop which receives extensive cultivation and the weed is held in check primarily by the cultivation given to the crop [Note: this is a poor practice, as it leads to further soil loss.] Another possibility is a crop that will actually compete with the weed for light, nutrients, or water. Then there are certain crops in which the weeds are held down by cultivation while the crop is young, but which compete with the weeds when the crop is nearer maturity; sugar beets are an example of this type of crop.” [Refer to information on sugar beets below.]
Idaho spuds – America’s affair with the potato
In 1836, the first wagon train on the Oregon Trail dropped off a Presbyterian missionary and his wife, Henry and Eliza Spalding, in the Lapwai Valley in Idaho. The Spaldings brought with them seeds of peas and seed potatoes. The first spring, the crops failed, but the next year, with the help of his Nez Perce converts, Henry Spalding had the first successful potato crop in Idaho, producing 800 bushels of potatoes. The Spaldings moved on to Oregon, but the Nez Perce continued to raise potatoes, which they used in trade with other settlers who arrived in wagon trains (Tusker Television Production, 2014). Later settlers to Utah and Idaho brought and planted more seed potatoes. In 1924, John R. Simplot planted over 100 acres in potatoes in the Snake River Valley. In the 1950s, he pioneered a method of freeze-drying French fries. In 1976, Simplot made a deal with McDonald’s founder, Ray Kroc, to be the primary supplier of frozen French fries. This deal made Simplot a billionaire.
In my frequent travels across the Western states, I have begun to ask myself the question, “Are we re-creating the Dust Bowl?”
As I paid closer attention to my surroundings on my drives between Montana and Texas, I became aware of the vast extent of the farming fields that lay barren after the summer potato harvest.
In particular, I noted that the Idaho potato farms, between Rexburg and Teton, Idaho, lay bare for months, between the fall, when I passed through them in September, and the spring, when I drove by them again the following May. When I passed by the potato fields in early May, I observed large clouds of dust following behind the tractors preparing the soil for the spring plantings.
So what became of the agricultural reforms that were promoted as a result of the devastating effects of the Dust Bowl? Are Americans now so enamored of our French fries and chips that we cannot give up our potato addiction? Will our love affair with the potato ultimately result in another potato famine?
In my interviews, I learned that, while farmers generally leave stubble on the ground when harvesting grains, the root crops, such as potatoes and sugar beets, require removal of the entire plant in order to extract the root, and thus do not have any stubble remaining in the soil after the harvest.
Potatoes are the largest vegetable crop in the USA. Although grown in 30 States, Idaho remains the largest producer of potatoes, with Washington, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Colorado also major producers (Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, 2018). In the northern and high-altitude Western States, the growing season is so short that it is challenging to plant a cover crop to hold the soil through the fall and winter months. Thus, large fields of potatoes and sugar beets typically lie barren for many months of the year, and as a result, we lose vast amounts of soil each year in the very large farms in the Western States.
But there are alternatives to help conserve the soil, including the use of mulching and cover crops to reduce soil loss:
The Irish potato famine
The Irish potato famine was also known as The Great Hunger. In 1845, a water mold organism called potato blight infested the potato farms in Ireland, and destroyed half of the crop in the first year, and more in the next few years. Only one variety of potato had been introduced into Ireland about one hundred years earlier. Due to the lack of genetic variability, the infestation affected most of the crop of potatoes. Potato blight has caused problems around the world for decades.
At that time of the Irish famine, all of Ireland was a colony of Great Britain, and many of the Irish farmers were poor tenant farmers, who relied heavily on potatoes as a food source. Heavy taxes from Great Britain made alternate food sources too expensive for the Irish tenant farmers. And many local crops were exported to England, rather than sold locally. The decimation of the potato crop caused massive starvation in Ireland. By 1852, approximately one million people died of starvation and related causes, and another one million people migrated out of Ireland (“Irish Potato Famine,” History.com, October 17, 2017).
Many agricultural advances have occurred since 1852, which have helped to prevent another event like the Irish potato famine. And yet, mass starvation has not ended in the world. Despite the agricultural advances, droughts and famines still occur. Places like Darfur, Sudan, are known not only for armed conflict but for recent famines. And in 2020, famine looms in various countries in Africa, in areas already ravaged by the AIDs epidemic for decades, that now face the covid-19 pandemic, while droughts, armed conflict, and severe poverty converge to create a dire future. In 2020, the World Food Programme identified 55 nations, in Africa, Central and South America, the Middle East, and Asia that face the possibility of famines in the coming months (2020 Global Report on Food Crises. Global Network against Food Crises & Food Security Information Network).
Sugar beet farming
Sugar beets, which are grown in large farms to provide much of the world’s sugar, is another root crop that requires the removal of the entire plant when harvested. Sugar beet pulp and molasses and beet tops are also used as feeding supplements for livestock. In the United States, at least 26 States produce sugar beets. The top producing States are Minnesota and North Dakota, with major production also in Idaho, California, Michigan, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and Texas (Cattanach, et al., 1991).
Russia is the largest producer of sugar beets worldwide, with several EU nations also major producers (Cattanach, et al., 1991). A recent report revealed that sugar beet and potato farms cause high soil losses within the EU nations, with about 14.7 million tonnes of soil lost per year. Sugar beet harvesting causes about 65% of the soil loss, and potatoes about 35% (Panagos, et al., 2019). Recent increased demands for sugar beets will exacerbate this problem, due to its promotion for use as a biofuel.
Crop rotation studies with potatoes and sugar beets
In a study conducted in Alberta, Canada, for twelve years, diverse crop rotation systems were compared, using both potato and sugar beet crops in the rotations, to test the benefits of crop rotations, along with other Conservation Management practices (King, 2017).
The study found that the most beneficial rotations for sugar beets were both a four-year rotation, and a five-year rotation, both with Conservation Management practices (when compared with a six-year rotation with Conservation Management, and a four-year crop rotation with conventional tillage). The four Conservation Management practices used were: “reduced tillage where possible; feedlot manure compost inputs to replace some of the fertilizer; fall-seeded cover crops; and narrow-row dry bean (compared to conventional wide-row dry bean).” Reduced tillage had recently been adopted in Alberta for sugar beets, thus even the more conventional treatment had reduced tillage. Also, sugar beets are harvested too late in the fall for a cover crop to be incorporated into that year of the rotation.
The four-year conservation rotation was: “narrow-row dry bean followed by fall-applied compost, potato followed by a fall-seeded cereal (usually fall rye), wheat and sugar beet. The five-year conservation rotation… was: wheat, narrow-row dry bean followed by fall-applied compost, potato followed by a fall-seeded cereal (usually fall rye), wheat and sugar beet followed by fall-applied compost.”
With sugar beets, significant beneficial effects of crop rotation did not appear until the seventh year of the study. By year 12, various soil improvements were apparent. “Soil organic carbon levels, soil aggregate stability and microbial biomass significantly increased. Also, the populations and diversity of endophytes – microbes that live within a plant without causing harm – were greater with conservation management. Some of these endophytes were found to be associated with plant-growth promoting benefits such as improved crop nutrition and disease suppression in potatoes.”
The researchers concluded that “the main conservation practice recommended for sugar beet growers is a good residue cover from the crop before sugar beets. Tillage that leaves adequate levels of residue from a previous crop is an important management practice in sugar beet production. If possible, sugar beet growers adjust their crop rotation so that low residue crops are not produced back to back. In this regard, small grain crops are preferred between sugar beets and other low residue crops like potatoes and beans…. Grain cover crops are also used on some lighter textured soils in the spring of the year that beets are seeded, although this is not widespread.” The researchers also found that strip tillage, used to help manage weeds, was useful for reducing soil loss (C. King, Sugar Beets and Soil Conservation. Top Crop Manager, June 1, 2017).
Cattanach, et al., 1991, reported on several US studies on the effectiveness of crop rotation that includes potatoes and sugar beets. They found that “yields and quality [of sugarbeets] usually are highest when sugarbeets follow barley or wheat in the crop rotation. Yields usually are high when sugarbeets follow corn, potatoes or summer fallow in rotation, but higher than desirable residual soil nitrogen levels may follow these crops and reduce sugarbeet quality. Three years research in Minnesota indicated sugarbeet yielded significantly less when following soybeans versus barley in rotation. One year of research indicated sugarbeet yields also were reduced following dry edible beans in rotation.” They report on the effectiveness of a variety of herbicides and tillage practices. They also reported that sugar beets can be successfully managed with no till practices.
Agricultural production today – the continuous loss of soil and soil nutrients
The following quotations from the book, Natural Capitalism, provide a bleak look into the past and future of agriculture:
“In the past half century (1950-2000), production of major crops has more than doubled; that of cereals has tripled.... Almost all of the world’s increase in food output has been the result of higher-yielding, faster-maturing crops, rather than from farming more land, because essentially all good land is already being cultivated. Although 1 to 4 billion more acres are potentially arable worldwide, mainly in developing countries, that land would cost more to irrigate, drain, and link to markets than crop prices now justify. Intensification is therefore conventionally considered the only feasible way to continue expanding world food production to feed the growing population….
“Increasingly, farmers’ traditional knowledge and agrarian culture were displaced by a managerial and industrial culture—a profound shift in the foundations of society. Today only one percent of Americans grow food for the rest; 87 percent of the food comes from 18 percent of the farms. Most farms have in effect become factories owned by absentee interests; and ownership not only of farms but of such upstream and downstream enterprises as seed and chemical suppliers, meat-packers and grain merchants, is becoming rapidly more concentrated, leading to all the abuses that one might expect.
“Almost unnoticed in the figures charting the rise of agricultural output is that actual returns on agricultural intensification are diminishing. The president of the Rockefeller Foundation, among the world’s leading authorities on the green revolution, warns that at least in developing countries, ‘Recent data on crop yields and production…suggest a degree of stagnation which is worrying.’
“The superficial success of America’s farms masks other underlying problems. A third of the original topsoil in the United States is gone, and much of the rest is degraded. Soil productivity in the semiarid Great Plains fell by 71 percent just during the 28 years after sodbusting. Notwithstanding some recent progress in reviving soil conservation efforts, topsoil is eroding very much faster than it is being formed. Growing a bushel of corn in conventional ways can erode two to five bushels of topsoil. In the 1980s a dumptruck-load of topsoil per second was passing New Orleans in the Mississippi River. A decade later, 90 percent of American farmland was still losing topsoil faster—on average, 17 times faster—than new topsoil was being formed, incurring costs projected at $44 billion over the next 20 years. In many developing countries, matters are even worse.
“A more subtle decline than physical soil loss, but no less dangerous, is the invisible loss of the soil’s organic richness. The ability of soil bacteria, fungi, and other tiny organisms to cycle nutrients, fight disease, and create the proper soil texture and composition to protect roots and hold water is essential to soil health. Texture matters: Coarse particles are needed for air spaces, fine ones for water retention and surface chemistry. So does humus: Of a good soil’s 50 percent that is solid matter, the one-tenth that is organic content can hold about as much water and nutrients as the mineral nine-tenths. Long-term experiments in wheat/fallow systems in the semiarid Northwest found that except when manure was applied, the soil’s levels of organic carbon and nitrogen have been declining steadily since the early 1930s, even in fallow seasons. Perhaps a tenth of on-farm energy use is already required to offset such soil problems as the degradation of nutrients, water-holding capacity, and hence crop productivity caused by erosion. As more soil quantity and quality are lost, that penalty—perhaps already reducing U.S. farm output by about 8 percent in the short term and 20 percent over the next 20 years—will rise. Most ancient civilizations collapsed because they destroyed their topsoil, but few policymakers seem mindful of that history. After a century of farming in Iowa, the place with the world’s highest concentration of prime farmland, the millennia-old prairie soil, laments Evan Eisenberg, ‘is half gone. What is left is half dead, the roiling, crawling life burned out of it by herbicides, pesticides, and relentless monocropping. Petrochemicals feed its zombie productivity. Hospitable Iowans assure their guests that the coffee is made from ‘reverse-osmosis’ water, since agricultural runoff has made the tap water undrinkable’” (Hawken, Lovins, & Lovins, 1999, pages 166-168).
“Soils ‘represent a vast diversity of microbes…that we know nothing about.’ Soils, in short, have recently been discovered to ‘harbor a complex and largely unknown microflora’ implying ‘many unknown ecological and biochemical processes….’ Science can’t understand how plants grow until it understands the ecology of what they grow from: as Donald Worster put it, ‘We can no more manufacture a soil with a tank of chemicals than we can invent a rain forest or produce a single bird.’ And understanding soil, the ultimate natural capital (the Chinese call it the mother of all things), is in turn the key to turning agriculture from part of the climate problem into part of the solution” (Hawken, et al., 1999, page 176).
Climate-Smart & Regenerative Agricultural Practices
The World Economic Forum developed a report, Transforming Food Systems with Farmers, to assist the European Union nations in developing sustainable agricultural practices, practices the WEF calls Climate-Smart Agriculture. The report states that, “if just an additional 20% of farmers adopted climate-smart agriculture, by 2030, the EU could reduce its annual agricultural GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions by 6% and improve soil health over an area equivalent to 14% of EU’s agricultural land while improving farmer livelihoods by between €1.9 and €9.3 billion annually” (WEF, 2022, page 4).
The WEF recommends 28 climate-smart agricultural practices, which are listed on page 7 of the report. A number of those practices are also elaborated on in within this website.
"Occupying nearly 40% of the region’s land-mass, agriculture is currently responsible for 10% of the EU’s GHG emissions and
is a leading driver of environmental degradation. Since the 1950s, traditional farm management has been replaced by heavily industrialized and intensive agriculture. Intensive practices have allowed global agricultural output to increase by 60% over the
past 40 years, yet they have also led to many environmental and social externalities. Recent studies show that the EU loses 970 million tonnes of soil annually, equal to an area the size of Berlin at one metre deep, and has already lost 50% to 70% of the carbon stocks held in these soils" (WEF, p. 8).
Conservation Agriculture
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations promotes Conservation Agriculture (CA), using following principles.
Food wastage worldwide
It may seem absurd to say that landowners in the world need to learn how to use best farming practices. Surely, in the USA, we learned our lesson after the Dust Bowl years.
Or did we?
A 2013 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on global food wastage, revealed that most nations waste large amounts of food. Industrialized and non-industrialized regions of Asia combined ranks the highest in food wastage globally. “FAO estimates that each year, approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption in the world is lost or wasted. This food wastage represents a missed opportunity to improve global food security, but also to mitigate environmental impacts and resources use from food chains…. The global volume of food wastage is estimated to be 1.6 Gtonnes of ‘primary product equivalents,’ while the total wastage for the edible part of food is 1.3 Gtonnes. This amount can be weighed against total agricultural production (for food and non-food uses), which is about 6 Gtonnes… The carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated to 3.3 Gtonnes of CO2 equivalent: as such, food wastage ranks as the third top emitter after USA and China. Globally, the blue water footprint (i.e. the consumption of surface and groundwater resources) of food wastage is about 250 km3, which is equivalent to the annual water discharge of the Volga river, or three times the volume of lake Geneva. Finally, produced but uneaten food vainly occupies almost 1.4 billion hectares of land; this represents close to 30 percent of the world’s agricultural land area. While it is difficult to estimate impacts on biodiversity at a global level, food wastage unduly compounds the negative externalities that monocropping and agriculture expansion into wild areas create on biodiversity loss, including mammals, birds, fish and amphibians….
“Europe, [North America plus Oceania] and [Industrialized] Asia have the highest per capita carbon footprint of food wastage (approximately 700 to 900 kg CO2 eq. per capita and per year.” This FAO report provides an excellent summary of which crops end up with the greatest food wastage and the factors that lead to food wastage and an increased carbon footprint within the agricultural industries.
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The Dust Bowl Re-visited
Summaries of research and commentary prepared by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull, Professor Emerita of Science Education, University of Montana Western, July 2020.
“Every man of discernment, while walking upon the earth, feeleth indeed abashed, inasmuch as he is fully aware that the thing which is the source of his prosperity, his wealth, his might, his exaltation, his advancement and power is, as ordained by God, the very earth which is trodden beneath the feet of all men.” - Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 44.
The Dust Bowl
For those of us too young to have experienced the Dust Bowl, it is impossible to imagine the devastating effects caused by the loss of millions of acres of topsoil in the 1930s. The causes of the Dust Bowl can be summed up as poor agricultural practices and short-sighted Federal policies.
A series of Federal Homestead Acts, from 1862 to 1909, provided acreage to settlers, to encourage the settling of Western States. Unfortunately, many of those who took up the challenge were inexperienced farmers. Lack of scientific knowledge of ecological systems, and lack of knowledge of dryland farming techniques, resulted in intensive cultivation of marginal lands, much of which had little access to irrigation. From western Oklahoma and Texas and further west, farmers are lucky to have more than 20 inches of rain per year. In addition, the Western States experience high winds much of the year.
Rising wheat prices and increased demand for wheat from Europe during World War I contributed to farmers replacing millions of acres of natural prairie grasslands with wheat, corn, and other grains. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the price of grains dropped. Farmers in the Great Plains responded by plowing up greater and greater acreages, in evermore marginal lands.
Severe drought hit the Midwest and the Southern Great Plains in the 1930s and continued for much of the decade. Crop failures resulted in many farmers, particularly in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, abandoning their farms, leaving the land bare. With the loss of the native grasses, that previously had held the soil in place, massive soil erosion occurred. Massive dust storms carried even more soil away. Economically devastated farm families fled further west, resulting in the largest migration in U.S. history. It is estimated that 35 million acres of farmland became unusable by 1934, with soil loss affecting another 125 million acres by the end of the 1930s (“Dust Bowl,” on History.com, Oct. 27, 2009).
The poor agricultural practices that contributed to the Dust Bowl included: conversion of millions of acres from livestock production to wheat growing, leading to the removal of native prairie grasses whose roots hold water and hold the soil, deep plowing of the topsoil, and the newly available mechanized farm equipment, especially the combine harvester.
After the drought years, early in the 1940s, massive areas of tree windbreaks were planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps, to protect soils and crops from high winds. Farmers were encouraged to use contour plowing and no-till farming, to reduce soil erosion. And when wheat prices soared in the early 1940s, millions more acres of land were converted to wheat production.
In addition, about four million acres of failed farmlands were purchased by the Federal government and planted in native prairie grasses, to form the National Grasslands.
But farming reforms were not always readily adopted by farmers. Jim Pike, District Conservationist for the NRCS Laramie County Field Office, told me that a number of veterans of World War II received free land from the Federal government in 100-acre parcels in the West. Many of these new farmers had no previous farming experience, and thus often lacked the knowledge of how to implement the farming practices that would best conserve the soil. In reading accounts from these veterans, he noted that they seemed to have no weed problems for a long time. That was when the land still had a decent organic layer. As that layer wasted away, weeds began invading.
Jim Pike also commented, “In the inter-mountain region, from Texas to Canada, most dryland wheat farming is not economically feasible without government subsidies. So, except in a few places, such as the Golden Triangle in north-central Montana, we are keeping the wheat farms in operation artificially. If we could gradually phase out or reduce the subsidies, while assisting a return to livestock production, I believe the farmers would have a chance to become financially independent. Some federal subsidies or land leases may still be needed.
“If we use the funds to revegetate with native seeds, we can eventually restore the land, create a carbon sink, to get organics back in the soil, and go back to livestock grazing.”
Another event that changed farming in the West was the ability to extract massive amounts of water from underground aquifers, in particular the Ogallala Aquifer. The inexpensive cost of natural gas facilitated underground water extraction. This began the era of large-scale irrigation in the West. This allowed farmers to grow crops that used more water. Corn for livestock feed, became a widespread crop as a result (“The Dustbowl,” a film by Ken Burns).
Ironically, the rapid expansion of invasive plants in the West has had a positive impact on the use of farming techniques that aid with soil conservation. In my 2017 interview with Phil Westra, Weed Scientist from Colorado State University, told me, “During my career, I’ve seen a massive shift in crop tilling practices. While in the past, farmers would till the soil deeply after the harvest, now there is minimal till or reduced till, due to the need to reduce the use of herbicides. Weed management is being threatened by the evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds…. 85-90% of crop land is now managed with reduced till.”
John Samson, Agronomist for the Wyoming Department of Transportation, had worked for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service (now the NRCS) until Federal budget cuts of the 1990s forced him into early retirement from the USDA. He pointed out that the big budget cuts, that had enabled the Clinton Administration to balance the US budget, had an unintended consequence. The loss of large numbers of career professionals resulted in what might be called a “brain-drain.” Much institutional memory was lost at that time. This resulted in the eventual hire of many new, younger employees who, as knowledgeable as they might be in their respective fields, lacked the knowledge of what agricultural practices had been most effective in preserving the soil and soil nutrients, particularly in the years following the Great Depression.
During the Trump Administration, we saw another major out-migration from many Federal agencies, including many of the researchers with the knowledge of effective farming practices, and along with them, much knowledge of what works, and even more importantly, what doesn’t work, to conserve the land.
The road to progress in conservation agriculture is slow. Educating farmers to change their practices is challenging. The following excerpt from archival minutes of the 1942 Western Weed Conference shows how little was understood in the decade following the Dust Bowl years: “There are three types of crops we can use on weed infested land. One possibility is a crop which receives extensive cultivation and the weed is held in check primarily by the cultivation given to the crop [Note: this is a poor practice, as it leads to further soil loss.] Another possibility is a crop that will actually compete with the weed for light, nutrients, or water. Then there are certain crops in which the weeds are held down by cultivation while the crop is young, but which compete with the weeds when the crop is nearer maturity; sugar beets are an example of this type of crop.” [Refer to information on sugar beets below.]
Idaho spuds – America’s affair with the potato
In 1836, the first wagon train on the Oregon Trail dropped off a Presbyterian missionary and his wife, Henry and Eliza Spalding, in the Lapwai Valley in Idaho. The Spaldings brought with them seeds of peas and seed potatoes. The first spring, the crops failed, but the next year, with the help of his Nez Perce converts, Henry Spalding had the first successful potato crop in Idaho, producing 800 bushels of potatoes. The Spaldings moved on to Oregon, but the Nez Perce continued to raise potatoes, which they used in trade with other settlers who arrived in wagon trains (Tusker Television Production, 2014). Later settlers to Utah and Idaho brought and planted more seed potatoes. In 1924, John R. Simplot planted over 100 acres in potatoes in the Snake River Valley. In the 1950s, he pioneered a method of freeze-drying French fries. In 1976, Simplot made a deal with McDonald’s founder, Ray Kroc, to be the primary supplier of frozen French fries. This deal made Simplot a billionaire.
In my frequent travels across the Western states, I have begun to ask myself the question, “Are we re-creating the Dust Bowl?”
As I paid closer attention to my surroundings on my drives between Montana and Texas, I became aware of the vast extent of the farming fields that lay barren after the summer potato harvest.
In particular, I noted that the Idaho potato farms, between Rexburg and Teton, Idaho, lay bare for months, between the fall, when I passed through them in September, and the spring, when I drove by them again the following May. When I passed by the potato fields in early May, I observed large clouds of dust following behind the tractors preparing the soil for the spring plantings.
So what became of the agricultural reforms that were promoted as a result of the devastating effects of the Dust Bowl? Are Americans now so enamored of our French fries and chips that we cannot give up our potato addiction? Will our love affair with the potato ultimately result in another potato famine?
In my interviews, I learned that, while farmers generally leave stubble on the ground when harvesting grains, the root crops, such as potatoes and sugar beets, require removal of the entire plant in order to extract the root, and thus do not have any stubble remaining in the soil after the harvest.
Potatoes are the largest vegetable crop in the USA. Although grown in 30 States, Idaho remains the largest producer of potatoes, with Washington, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Colorado also major producers (Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, 2018). In the northern and high-altitude Western States, the growing season is so short that it is challenging to plant a cover crop to hold the soil through the fall and winter months. Thus, large fields of potatoes and sugar beets typically lie barren for many months of the year, and as a result, we lose vast amounts of soil each year in the very large farms in the Western States.
But there are alternatives to help conserve the soil, including the use of mulching and cover crops to reduce soil loss:
- Mulch planting: A green manure cover crop, grown over the winter, becomes the mulch into which the seed potatoes are inserted in the spring. And a second cover crop is grown as soon as the potatoes are harvested, to protect the exposed soil. However, this technique does involve tilling, and thus does disrupt the topsoil. It is used in Germany, which has cold winters in some areas, and Switzerland, which has cold winters, although not as cold as the Northwestern States. But both have more precipitation than the US Western States. This practice is less feasible in the dryer and colder climates of most of the Western States, but is it absurd to think that implementation of such practices is possible?
- No-till. The seed potatoes are pressed into the soil, and covered with a mulch, such as straw, or even black plastic sheets (although these have their own problems. Refer to the section of this website, Organic Farming, for the challenges of plastic mulching fabrics). This technique does less damage to the soil layers, but is usually only feasible for small farms that use manual labor. In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (AKA North Korea), the no-till technique uses a two-crop rotation system. Rice is grown, then mulch is created from the residue of the rice plants (rice straw), which provides the mulch in which the seed potatoes are inserted. This technique produces two crops in a short growing season and preserves soil nutrients, reducing the need for fertilizer. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: FAO Factsheet: Potato & Soil Conservation, T. Friedrich, 2008).
The Irish potato famine
The Irish potato famine was also known as The Great Hunger. In 1845, a water mold organism called potato blight infested the potato farms in Ireland, and destroyed half of the crop in the first year, and more in the next few years. Only one variety of potato had been introduced into Ireland about one hundred years earlier. Due to the lack of genetic variability, the infestation affected most of the crop of potatoes. Potato blight has caused problems around the world for decades.
At that time of the Irish famine, all of Ireland was a colony of Great Britain, and many of the Irish farmers were poor tenant farmers, who relied heavily on potatoes as a food source. Heavy taxes from Great Britain made alternate food sources too expensive for the Irish tenant farmers. And many local crops were exported to England, rather than sold locally. The decimation of the potato crop caused massive starvation in Ireland. By 1852, approximately one million people died of starvation and related causes, and another one million people migrated out of Ireland (“Irish Potato Famine,” History.com, October 17, 2017).
Many agricultural advances have occurred since 1852, which have helped to prevent another event like the Irish potato famine. And yet, mass starvation has not ended in the world. Despite the agricultural advances, droughts and famines still occur. Places like Darfur, Sudan, are known not only for armed conflict but for recent famines. And in 2020, famine looms in various countries in Africa, in areas already ravaged by the AIDs epidemic for decades, that now face the covid-19 pandemic, while droughts, armed conflict, and severe poverty converge to create a dire future. In 2020, the World Food Programme identified 55 nations, in Africa, Central and South America, the Middle East, and Asia that face the possibility of famines in the coming months (2020 Global Report on Food Crises. Global Network against Food Crises & Food Security Information Network).
Sugar beet farming
Sugar beets, which are grown in large farms to provide much of the world’s sugar, is another root crop that requires the removal of the entire plant when harvested. Sugar beet pulp and molasses and beet tops are also used as feeding supplements for livestock. In the United States, at least 26 States produce sugar beets. The top producing States are Minnesota and North Dakota, with major production also in Idaho, California, Michigan, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and Texas (Cattanach, et al., 1991).
Russia is the largest producer of sugar beets worldwide, with several EU nations also major producers (Cattanach, et al., 1991). A recent report revealed that sugar beet and potato farms cause high soil losses within the EU nations, with about 14.7 million tonnes of soil lost per year. Sugar beet harvesting causes about 65% of the soil loss, and potatoes about 35% (Panagos, et al., 2019). Recent increased demands for sugar beets will exacerbate this problem, due to its promotion for use as a biofuel.
Crop rotation studies with potatoes and sugar beets
In a study conducted in Alberta, Canada, for twelve years, diverse crop rotation systems were compared, using both potato and sugar beet crops in the rotations, to test the benefits of crop rotations, along with other Conservation Management practices (King, 2017).
The study found that the most beneficial rotations for sugar beets were both a four-year rotation, and a five-year rotation, both with Conservation Management practices (when compared with a six-year rotation with Conservation Management, and a four-year crop rotation with conventional tillage). The four Conservation Management practices used were: “reduced tillage where possible; feedlot manure compost inputs to replace some of the fertilizer; fall-seeded cover crops; and narrow-row dry bean (compared to conventional wide-row dry bean).” Reduced tillage had recently been adopted in Alberta for sugar beets, thus even the more conventional treatment had reduced tillage. Also, sugar beets are harvested too late in the fall for a cover crop to be incorporated into that year of the rotation.
The four-year conservation rotation was: “narrow-row dry bean followed by fall-applied compost, potato followed by a fall-seeded cereal (usually fall rye), wheat and sugar beet. The five-year conservation rotation… was: wheat, narrow-row dry bean followed by fall-applied compost, potato followed by a fall-seeded cereal (usually fall rye), wheat and sugar beet followed by fall-applied compost.”
With sugar beets, significant beneficial effects of crop rotation did not appear until the seventh year of the study. By year 12, various soil improvements were apparent. “Soil organic carbon levels, soil aggregate stability and microbial biomass significantly increased. Also, the populations and diversity of endophytes – microbes that live within a plant without causing harm – were greater with conservation management. Some of these endophytes were found to be associated with plant-growth promoting benefits such as improved crop nutrition and disease suppression in potatoes.”
The researchers concluded that “the main conservation practice recommended for sugar beet growers is a good residue cover from the crop before sugar beets. Tillage that leaves adequate levels of residue from a previous crop is an important management practice in sugar beet production. If possible, sugar beet growers adjust their crop rotation so that low residue crops are not produced back to back. In this regard, small grain crops are preferred between sugar beets and other low residue crops like potatoes and beans…. Grain cover crops are also used on some lighter textured soils in the spring of the year that beets are seeded, although this is not widespread.” The researchers also found that strip tillage, used to help manage weeds, was useful for reducing soil loss (C. King, Sugar Beets and Soil Conservation. Top Crop Manager, June 1, 2017).
Cattanach, et al., 1991, reported on several US studies on the effectiveness of crop rotation that includes potatoes and sugar beets. They found that “yields and quality [of sugarbeets] usually are highest when sugarbeets follow barley or wheat in the crop rotation. Yields usually are high when sugarbeets follow corn, potatoes or summer fallow in rotation, but higher than desirable residual soil nitrogen levels may follow these crops and reduce sugarbeet quality. Three years research in Minnesota indicated sugarbeet yielded significantly less when following soybeans versus barley in rotation. One year of research indicated sugarbeet yields also were reduced following dry edible beans in rotation.” They report on the effectiveness of a variety of herbicides and tillage practices. They also reported that sugar beets can be successfully managed with no till practices.
Agricultural production today – the continuous loss of soil and soil nutrients
The following quotations from the book, Natural Capitalism, provide a bleak look into the past and future of agriculture:
“In the past half century (1950-2000), production of major crops has more than doubled; that of cereals has tripled.... Almost all of the world’s increase in food output has been the result of higher-yielding, faster-maturing crops, rather than from farming more land, because essentially all good land is already being cultivated. Although 1 to 4 billion more acres are potentially arable worldwide, mainly in developing countries, that land would cost more to irrigate, drain, and link to markets than crop prices now justify. Intensification is therefore conventionally considered the only feasible way to continue expanding world food production to feed the growing population….
“Increasingly, farmers’ traditional knowledge and agrarian culture were displaced by a managerial and industrial culture—a profound shift in the foundations of society. Today only one percent of Americans grow food for the rest; 87 percent of the food comes from 18 percent of the farms. Most farms have in effect become factories owned by absentee interests; and ownership not only of farms but of such upstream and downstream enterprises as seed and chemical suppliers, meat-packers and grain merchants, is becoming rapidly more concentrated, leading to all the abuses that one might expect.
“Almost unnoticed in the figures charting the rise of agricultural output is that actual returns on agricultural intensification are diminishing. The president of the Rockefeller Foundation, among the world’s leading authorities on the green revolution, warns that at least in developing countries, ‘Recent data on crop yields and production…suggest a degree of stagnation which is worrying.’
“The superficial success of America’s farms masks other underlying problems. A third of the original topsoil in the United States is gone, and much of the rest is degraded. Soil productivity in the semiarid Great Plains fell by 71 percent just during the 28 years after sodbusting. Notwithstanding some recent progress in reviving soil conservation efforts, topsoil is eroding very much faster than it is being formed. Growing a bushel of corn in conventional ways can erode two to five bushels of topsoil. In the 1980s a dumptruck-load of topsoil per second was passing New Orleans in the Mississippi River. A decade later, 90 percent of American farmland was still losing topsoil faster—on average, 17 times faster—than new topsoil was being formed, incurring costs projected at $44 billion over the next 20 years. In many developing countries, matters are even worse.
“A more subtle decline than physical soil loss, but no less dangerous, is the invisible loss of the soil’s organic richness. The ability of soil bacteria, fungi, and other tiny organisms to cycle nutrients, fight disease, and create the proper soil texture and composition to protect roots and hold water is essential to soil health. Texture matters: Coarse particles are needed for air spaces, fine ones for water retention and surface chemistry. So does humus: Of a good soil’s 50 percent that is solid matter, the one-tenth that is organic content can hold about as much water and nutrients as the mineral nine-tenths. Long-term experiments in wheat/fallow systems in the semiarid Northwest found that except when manure was applied, the soil’s levels of organic carbon and nitrogen have been declining steadily since the early 1930s, even in fallow seasons. Perhaps a tenth of on-farm energy use is already required to offset such soil problems as the degradation of nutrients, water-holding capacity, and hence crop productivity caused by erosion. As more soil quantity and quality are lost, that penalty—perhaps already reducing U.S. farm output by about 8 percent in the short term and 20 percent over the next 20 years—will rise. Most ancient civilizations collapsed because they destroyed their topsoil, but few policymakers seem mindful of that history. After a century of farming in Iowa, the place with the world’s highest concentration of prime farmland, the millennia-old prairie soil, laments Evan Eisenberg, ‘is half gone. What is left is half dead, the roiling, crawling life burned out of it by herbicides, pesticides, and relentless monocropping. Petrochemicals feed its zombie productivity. Hospitable Iowans assure their guests that the coffee is made from ‘reverse-osmosis’ water, since agricultural runoff has made the tap water undrinkable’” (Hawken, Lovins, & Lovins, 1999, pages 166-168).
“Soils ‘represent a vast diversity of microbes…that we know nothing about.’ Soils, in short, have recently been discovered to ‘harbor a complex and largely unknown microflora’ implying ‘many unknown ecological and biochemical processes….’ Science can’t understand how plants grow until it understands the ecology of what they grow from: as Donald Worster put it, ‘We can no more manufacture a soil with a tank of chemicals than we can invent a rain forest or produce a single bird.’ And understanding soil, the ultimate natural capital (the Chinese call it the mother of all things), is in turn the key to turning agriculture from part of the climate problem into part of the solution” (Hawken, et al., 1999, page 176).
Climate-Smart & Regenerative Agricultural Practices
The World Economic Forum developed a report, Transforming Food Systems with Farmers, to assist the European Union nations in developing sustainable agricultural practices, practices the WEF calls Climate-Smart Agriculture. The report states that, “if just an additional 20% of farmers adopted climate-smart agriculture, by 2030, the EU could reduce its annual agricultural GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions by 6% and improve soil health over an area equivalent to 14% of EU’s agricultural land while improving farmer livelihoods by between €1.9 and €9.3 billion annually” (WEF, 2022, page 4).
The WEF recommends 28 climate-smart agricultural practices, which are listed on page 7 of the report. A number of those practices are also elaborated on in within this website.
"Occupying nearly 40% of the region’s land-mass, agriculture is currently responsible for 10% of the EU’s GHG emissions and
is a leading driver of environmental degradation. Since the 1950s, traditional farm management has been replaced by heavily industrialized and intensive agriculture. Intensive practices have allowed global agricultural output to increase by 60% over the
past 40 years, yet they have also led to many environmental and social externalities. Recent studies show that the EU loses 970 million tonnes of soil annually, equal to an area the size of Berlin at one metre deep, and has already lost 50% to 70% of the carbon stocks held in these soils" (WEF, p. 8).
Conservation Agriculture
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations promotes Conservation Agriculture (CA), using following principles.
- Minimum mechanical soil disturbance, through direct seeding or planting (such as, no-till or reduced till) and planting (the precise placing of large seeds)
- Permanent soil organic cover, through crop residue left on the soil surface, and cover crops when needed
- Species diversification, through crop rotation
Food wastage worldwide
It may seem absurd to say that landowners in the world need to learn how to use best farming practices. Surely, in the USA, we learned our lesson after the Dust Bowl years.
Or did we?
A 2013 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on global food wastage, revealed that most nations waste large amounts of food. Industrialized and non-industrialized regions of Asia combined ranks the highest in food wastage globally. “FAO estimates that each year, approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption in the world is lost or wasted. This food wastage represents a missed opportunity to improve global food security, but also to mitigate environmental impacts and resources use from food chains…. The global volume of food wastage is estimated to be 1.6 Gtonnes of ‘primary product equivalents,’ while the total wastage for the edible part of food is 1.3 Gtonnes. This amount can be weighed against total agricultural production (for food and non-food uses), which is about 6 Gtonnes… The carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated to 3.3 Gtonnes of CO2 equivalent: as such, food wastage ranks as the third top emitter after USA and China. Globally, the blue water footprint (i.e. the consumption of surface and groundwater resources) of food wastage is about 250 km3, which is equivalent to the annual water discharge of the Volga river, or three times the volume of lake Geneva. Finally, produced but uneaten food vainly occupies almost 1.4 billion hectares of land; this represents close to 30 percent of the world’s agricultural land area. While it is difficult to estimate impacts on biodiversity at a global level, food wastage unduly compounds the negative externalities that monocropping and agriculture expansion into wild areas create on biodiversity loss, including mammals, birds, fish and amphibians….
“Europe, [North America plus Oceania] and [Industrialized] Asia have the highest per capita carbon footprint of food wastage (approximately 700 to 900 kg CO2 eq. per capita and per year.” This FAO report provides an excellent summary of which crops end up with the greatest food wastage and the factors that lead to food wastage and an increased carbon footprint within the agricultural industries.
References:
- Bahá’u’lláh. (1988). Epistle to the Son of the Wolf. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust.
- Cattanach, A.W., Dexter, A.G., & Oplinger, E.S. (1991). Sugar Beets, in Alternative Field Crops Manual. University of Wisconsin Extension, Cooperative Extension University of Minnesota. Center for Alternative Plant and Animal Products, and the Minnesota Extension Service.
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO]. (2013). Food wastage footprint: Impacts on natural resources. Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
- Friedrich, T. (2008). FAO Factsheet: Potato & Soil Conservation. https://www.fao.org/potato-2008/en/potato/soil.html
- Global Network Against Food Crises & Food Security Information Network. (2020). 2020 - Global report on food crises. UN World Food Programme.
- Hawken, P., Lovins, A., & Lovins, L.H. (1999). Natural Capitalism: Creating the next industrial revolution. NY: Little, Brown, & Company.
- King, C. (June 1, 2017). Sugar beets and soil conservation. Top Crop Manager (topcropmanager.com).
- Panagos, P., Borrelli, P., & Poesen, J. (May 10, 2019). Soil Loss Due to Crop Harvesting in the European Union: A first estimation of an underrated geomorphic loss, Science of the Total Environment, 664, 487-498.
- World Economic Forum. (April 2022). Transforming Food Systems with Farmers: A Pathway for the EU. World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Deloitte & NTT Data.
https://www.weforum.org/reports/transforming-food-systems-with-farmers-a-pathway-for-the-eu
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