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FYI
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"A nation that destroys its soils, destroys itself."
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt, from a letter sent to governors on February 26, 1937.
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Though there has been much effort over the past sixty years to address the issue and consequences of cropland erosion in Texas, it continues to be a major environmental and economic problem. Concern for soil erosion in the United
States dates back to Presidents Washington and Jefferson. The tobacco plantations in Virginia in the eighteenth century were managed in a way that
caused tremendous soil erosion, and one impetus for westward expansion by the European settlers was the need for "fresh" land. The problem of soil erosion was first addressed by federal legislation in the 1930s under the presidency of Franklin
Roosevelt. The drought and dust storms of the 1930s, particularly in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas, resulted
in tremendous crop and farm losses and left thousands of farmers unemployed. This brought presidential and congressional attention to the issue.
Though some progress has been made to arrest cropland erosion since the 1930s, human mismanagement, economic
forces, and climatic changes have allowed the problem to continue. Some of the soil-erosion correctives recommended
in the 1930s included crop rotation, contour plowing, and reserving marginal lands (not good cropland) as pastureland.
These practices were credited with arresting soil erosion for a time. But in the 1970s an increase in the worldwide
demand for farm commodities led the U.S. government to create new crop-subsidy incentives to encourage farmers to
plant "fencerow to fencerow." Many farmers, eager to increase production, put marginal lands into production and
discontinued the practice of crop rotation. But the need to combat the nutrient depletion of overused soils required
farmers to increase their use of chemical fertilizers and other inputs which were costly.
By the mid-1980s, federal action was again needed to address the problem of soil erosion. The 1985 Farm Bill
established the conservation reserve program (CRP), a program which has been extended in all subsequent farm bills
and which Texas producers have made full use. The Conservation Reserve Program was also intended to help ailing producers during a recession.
In addition to the CRP, there are several federal and state agencies responsible for overseeing programs that assist
agriculture producers and try to ensure that land remains productive and healthy.
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FYI
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Soil is the material that is formed from rocks and decaying plants and animals; it
makes up the outermost layer of the earth. There are at least 70,000 kinds of soil in the United States. Topsoil is considered the most productive soil layer.
According to the USDA, it takes 500 years to form one inch of topsoil.
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Source: USDA, Soil Conservation Service, Fact Sheet [April 1993].
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The consequences of soil erosion are serious.
- A total of 2.1 billion tons of U.S. cropland soil was lost to wind and water erosion in 1992.*
- The USDA has estimated that the offsite costs (to society at-large) in
the United States are between $2 billion and $8 billion annually, and the direct on-site farm cost is estimated at $1 billion to $18 billion per year.*
Large-scale loss from erosion results in at least two major environmental problems:
- Cropland becomes less productive because the soil left after erosion
loses its fertility and is unable to supply plants with necessary nutrients. The soil's ability to retain water also is
greatly diminished. These changes, in turn, result in higher production costs, including costs for the increased use of petrochemical-based fertilizer.
- The eroded soil causes sedimentation in waterways which threatens aquatic life and hinders water flow. The
erosion of soil by water also carries polluting agricultural chemicals into rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs.
In Texas, where 30.1 percent of the rivers and streams that have been assessed are impaired, agriculture sources
have been identified as causing ten percent of known sources of pollution.
- Of the 38.2 percent of the Texas lakes/reservoirs that have been assessed and classified as impaired, non-point
source runoff from irrigated crops have been identified as causing 14 percent of the known sources of pollution.*
- Both agricultural nitrates and pesticides have been found in groundwater in Texas.
- According to a study by the USDA Forest Service, Environmental Protection Agency and others, there are no
rivers or streams in Texas impaired by silviculture.*
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