Iowa Is Getting Sucked Into Scary Vanishing Gullies

[xchrom]

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/02/iowas-vaunted-farms-are-losing-topsoil-alarming-rate


See that gash in the land? Until heavy rains hit in May 2013, it was filled with topsoil. It's an "ephemeral gully," and Iowa is full of them after hard rains

Last year, after a record drought in 2012, Iowa experienced the wettest spring in its recorded history. The rains triggered massive runoff from the state's farms into its creeks, streams, and rivers, tainting water with toxic nitrate from fertilizer. Nitrate levels in the state's waterways reached record levels—so high that they emerged as "a real issue for human health," Bob Hirsch, a hydrologist for the US Geological Survey, told the Associated Press.

The event illustrated two problems facing Iowa and the rest of the nation's topsoil-rich grain belt. The first is the challenge of climate change: how to manage farmland in an era when weather lurches from brutal drought to flooding, as it likely will with increasing frequency. The second, related one is the largely invisible crisis of Iowa's topsoil, which appears to be eroding at a much higher rate than US Department of Agriculture numbers account for—and, more importantly, at 16 times the natural replacement rate.

I got that disturbing assessment from Richard Cruse, an agronomist and the director of Iowa State University's Iowa Water Center. Cruse's on-the-ground research documents a particular kind of soil erosion highly relevant to last year's heavy rains. Cruse told me that with current methods, the USDA measures a kind of soil loss called sheet and rill erosion, wherein water washes soil away in small channels that farm at the soil surface during rains. Under that measure, Iowa farmland loses on average 5.1 tons of topsoil per acre every year, according to the USDA's latest numbers, which are from 2007.

The USDA sees five tons per acre as a "magic number," Cruse said, because it's generally accepted to be the rate at which soil renews itself. So the prevailing view has been that "if we can limit erosion to five tons per acre, we can do this forever," Cruse said. But he added that the "best science" (explained here) indicates that the real sustainable erosion rate is closer a half ton per acre—meaning that even by the USDA's own limited measure, Iowa's soils are eroding much faster than they can be replaced naturally.

[hatrack]

1. No, no - I have it on good authority that we'll just find a substitute for topsoil!

That's the miracle of technology, you see.

[kristopher]

2. Rice paddies might provide a template.

Although I'm sure they'll find a solution that scales up more effectively.

[GliderGuider]

3. You're sure of that, are you?

Well, I'm sure as hell not.

[kristopher]

4. Yes, I am.

The problem isn't lack of engineering knowledge/expertise in how to fix the problem, it is designating it as a problem that requires a solution - a point the article clearly makes.

[NickB79]

5. The solutions conflict with the status quo

The solutions that might work (your paddy idea, setting aside large amounts of land to act as buffer zones, etc) don't mesh with the corporate agriculture model we've chosen to adopt and build our nation's food supply around that require massive, heavily mechanized farms. The solutions to ensure long-term viability of the soil require short-term profit sacrifices from big agriculture.

Designating something as a problem is just the first baby step in fixing it, a process that could take decades to implement, especially when you're going up against rich, powerful, deeply entrenched special interests. After all, James Hansen addressed Congress almost 20 years ago to ring the warning bell on climate change, and we see how well that fight has been progressing.....

[kristopher]

8. That's probably because we ran out of petroleum last year...

...and the world has descended into a post petroleum apocalypse.

That is where you said we would be in 2013, right?

The idea that the fix for this problem is nearly insurmountable is similar balderdash. Tackling the conditions of soil loss in the 'Dust Bowl" was far more difficult.

[NickB79]

9. In many ways, this is WORSE than what we faced in the Dust Bowl

Because in the 1930's, farms were still almost entirely small, family-run operations. Farming wasn't just a job; it was a tradition, a way of life, something they were proud of. The farmers saw their land blowing away in front of them, land they envisioned themselves passing on to their children and grandchildren, and were rightly scared shitless. Thus, when the government came in with radical, painful plans to save them from the Dust Bowl, they capitulated because they could see further down the road than the next year's profit margins.

Farmers were asked in the 30's to do things that almost destroyed them. Men openly crying over seeing government workers shoot their loved herds of cattle and bury them in shallow graves. Farmers given a few dollars to abandon their farmsteads to the dust dunes and accept factory jobs or government conservation works program jobs instead that sent them away from their families for months at a time.

Today, however, the farms are largely controlled by big agricultural businesses. Businesses that have DEEP pockets, filled with both money and Congressmen. Look at the latest farm bill that just passed; massive handouts to a few megafarm corporations while telling small farmers to suck it and cutting food stamps to the poor. Ask them to idle millions of acres of land to plant buffer strips, or switch over to no-till agriculture when they've invested millions in new equipment for open-till agriculture, and you'll likely have to wait many years to see a gradual change in practices. Short of another New Deal style program (fat chance of that in today's political climate) rapid change is very unlikely to occur. And in the meantime, the soil keeps eroding away faster and faster as climate change hammers the farmlands.

Like I said, admitting we have a problem is just ONE step in a very long procession that might take decades to see to the end. Just because a drunk admits he's a drunk, doesn't mean he's suddenly cured of alcoholism.

[kristopher]

10. That is on par with your insight into energy

What you wrote has virtually no relationship with reality; it doesn't even have a consistent internal validity.

[NickB79]

11. Your faith in megacorporations doing the right thing for the environment is duly noted

After all, when I think of "good, moral stewards of the environment", I can't HELP but to think of such outstanding organizations as Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, and the factory farming business model they require to survive.

I mean, it's not like they'd cause MASSIVE environmental damage just to improve short-term profit margins, the future be damned: http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-roundup-monarch-butterflies-483/

What you wrote has virtually no relationship with reality

Well damn, I must live in a realm outside reality, seeing as how the examples I gave of Dust Bowl life were from books written that documented the Dust Bowl, real-life family experiences from my 6-generation family of farmers, and the many, many discussions I've had with the farmers that I call my friends and neighbors, some of whom are old enough to give first-hand accounts of farm life from the Dust Bowl all the way to modern day.

Where, may I ask, do you get your extensive knowledge of farm life, history and economics again?

[kristopher]

12. You have your facts wrong, nick.

Nothing new in that, though.

NickB79 Apr 2008
I know I'm not alone in thinking the world's energy supply will be falling off a cliff within the next 5 years

[NickB79]

14. My facts are wrong, yet you offer no rebuttals

Like I said, your faith in Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, their corporate factory farms, etc, is duly noted.

[kristopher]

15. I said identifying the problem and regulating a solution is the answer.

Your appeal to completely transparent faux populism is obvious for the pathetic ploy that it is.

[NickB79]

16. We all make mistakes, Kris

Mine was to bet that humans WEREN'T suicidal enough to tap insane energy sources like tar sands, deepwater oil and fracking. Unfortunately, my optimism got the best of me and it turns out humans really ARE that insane and suicidal

Hell, I remember a guy here who even tried to argue that global warming wasn't even due primarily to CO2 forcing, but rather waste heat from coal and nuclear reactors. He went so far as to support a laughably bad study by Bo Nordell, and got his ass handed to him for it.

You wouldn't happen to remember that poster's name, would you?

[kristopher]

17. No, yours was a spectacular instance of self delusion

And your implied claim about my position is completely false. I encourage you to track down your memory and reread the threads. I was correct then, and no less correct now.

That you would make such a transparently false assertion is another sign of your desperate attempt to deflect from your ongoing litany of errors.

[NickB79]

13. We didn't actually tackle much of any soil loss in the Dust Bowl

The general consensus today is that much of the efforts put into stopping the soil erosion that epitomized the Dust Bowl in fact had very little effect. Much of what was done was haphazard, on the fly work that didn't have much evidence backing it up. Hell, there were serious proposals at the time by senators on the East Coast to just pave the entire center of the continent as a viable solution, because they simply didn't realize the scale of the problem. Even the much-vaulted Great Plains Shelterbelt program has been questioned in it's effectiveness.

What ended the Dust Bowl wasn't any act of man, but simply a few years of good rains. The majority of the government's actions consisted of trying to get farmers off the land to prevent further erosion, supporting them as best they could financially, and praying to God for rain.

[SkatmanRoth]

6. There was a similar post last November

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112756688

[NickB79]

7. The only long-term solution is the elimination of large agri-business

Replace the factory farm model we currently use with one based upon around smaller, more diverse farmsteads like those that existed a century ago. Instead of one farm running 2000 acres of solid corn or soy, you'd have 10-20 small farms running a wide variety of crops, livestock, orchards, woodlots, etc. As an added benefit, it would revitalize rural areas that are turning into ghost towns today.

Farmers like to claim they are "good stewards of the land" when discussing environmental issues. This may have been true decades ago, but today, with big ag companies dictating what farmers grow, long-term land stewardship takes a backseat to short-term profits.

[De Leonist]

18. As a resident of Iowa...

I'm not surprised at this one bit. Many of the Biologists in our state have been talking top soil erosion for quite some time. If we instituted no-til farming practices by law we could save a lot of what we have left. As I understand it unless your talking about a short list of specific crops tilling or no-tilling farming will affect the crop yield by only a slight amount. Agri-Business has stifled a number of attempts to address this by what Progressive Politicians we have had in our state legislature. Iowa being a red state means that Liberal Causes don't get much traction with the P.T.B. and the concerns of Big Business are the priorities of the day. But I guess I should be thankful that despite how batshit the administration in every other republican run red state seems to be here in Iowa the words "Moderate Republican" don't just describe a fictional creature. Our current Governor Branstad is no friend of the Tea Party. Really the only redeeming characteristic about him in my opinion. But than I find myself carrying a deep anger towards Republicans as a group.