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TODAY Friday 13 June 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
newsroom
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TODAY Friday 13 June 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Treating Soil like Dirt
For separating the amateurs from the pros and the concerned from the obsessed, there's nothing like talk about the farm. You know you've found a true-green enviro if he or she blathers on about agriculture to people who politely feign interest. No dinner party companion should ever ask me "So what do you think are the really important environmental problems?".
Because, sad to say, I'll almost always say "transportation and food." I'll then offer a dull explanatory paragraph or two, which, despite my intentions, generally results in a cloud descending on the table which makes people feel guilty to talk about some roadster they covet or a great new steakhouse that's just opened up across town.
Sometimes an extremely polite person will actually respond to the food portion of my statement and express concern about pesticides. Spurning dialogue, I then usually instruct the person that while pesticides are a definite problem -- mostly to farmers and farmworkers, I say, although the endocrine disruption stuff is pretty scary -- soil loss is a much bigger issue than food contamination. Did you know, I say (in what might be described as the quintessential rhetorical question), that in some parts of the Midwest three bushels of soil are washed down the Mississippi River for every bushel of harvested corn? That usually stops even the kindest of interlocutors, and the conversation can return to anecdotes about charming children and promising breakthroughs in psychopharmacology.
But, here, amidst fellow zealots, I just want to remind us all that in the calculation of natural resource depletions soil loss ranks at or near the top ("Quantification"), call attention to the new and persuasive hypothesis that coral reef degradation is linked to wind-carried soil from overgrazed North Africa ("Coral Reefs of the Sahara"), and mention that, against all form, there's actually some good news on the soil-preservation front. There's a government program to save erodible land, and it's worked well.
The program is called the Conservation Reserve Program. CRP was started in 1985 as a means by which the federal government could boost food prices by paying farmers to remove land from production. At each five-year re-authorization of the federal Farm Bill (1990-91 and 1995-96) the conservation elements of the program were strengthened so that a higher percentage of the land removed from production was "highly erodible" acreage that, if plowed, would be particularly susceptible to blowing or washing away. Farmers are like the rest of us, and were perfectly happy to get paid to leave something alone, and became instant converts to soil preservation so long as the price was right.
The newest Farm Bill re-authorizes CRP and offers some financial sweeteners for farmers to establish vegetative buffer zones around streams and wetlands to filter the sediments and fertilizers and pesticides that end up in the water. There are also new and stricter limitations on what kinds of croplands will be considered eligible for the subsidized reserves. What's remarkable is how popular the program has become and how the major controversy is only over the perceived inadequacy of its scope. A bipartisan coalition of 48 House and Senate members are pushing hard for an expansion of the land covered by the program (16 million acres to 19 million acres) and full expenditure of all authorized funds. This kind of Democrat/Republican coalition on spending is usually restricted to expensive weapons systems with subcontractors in a multitude of congressional districts.
And the program works. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute credits CRP with saving more American soil than all previous federal efforts put together. Here we have a government program which offers billions of dollars of welfare handouts to a chronically dependent population, and it's terrific.
TODAY ON THE SITE
Farming is something we cover around here. Check into our two High Fives on Agriculture (be Hal Hamilton and Chuck Hassebrook) and then pull up a chair with Hal Hamilton for a Dialog on strategies for food-growing sustainability.
6/12: Cheap Oil and Bargain Cars
6/11: More Taxes
6/10: Clean Air, Hot Air
6/09: Swimming
6/06: Enviros and Transpo
6/05: Fabulous Ethanol
6/04: Swine and Federalism
6/03: A New Measure
6/02: My Front Yard
5/30: Funders
5/29: Quantification
5/28: Over the Top
5/27: Solar Hippies
5/23: Spiffy Cars, Clunker Bikes
5/22: Petroleum Heresy
5/21: We Irish
5/20: Shallow Backpackers
5/19: Songbirds
5/16: Fat, Fat, Fat
5/15: Our Forthright Administration
5/14: Coral Reefs of the Sahara
5/13: (Life Before) Death and Taxes
5/12: Kids
5/09: Free Trade and Hormones
5/08: Sherry Boehlert, Republican
5/07: Fort Davis, West Texas
5/06: Europe (yawn)
5/05: Divorce, Mothers, Equality
5/02: Killer Grannies and the Highway Bill
5/01: China
4/30: Pity the Mangrove
4/29: Grizzlies off Battery Park
4/28: Mighty Monsanto
4/25: Growth
4/24: Refrigerator Wars
4/23: The Day the Earth Day Stood Still
4/22: Doorman Ecology
4/21: Toyota Steps Out
4/18: Victims of Extremism
4/17: Our White Guy Problem
4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway