Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

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As crop yields increased two- to threefold from 1950 to the 1990s, the
cost of machinery, fertilizer, and pesticide rose from about half to over
three-quarters of farm income. Two types of farms survived: those that
opted out of industrialization and those that grew by working larger areas
for a smaller net return per acre. By the 1980s the largest farms, dubbed
superfarms by the USDA, accounted for close to half of all farm income.
If small-scale agriculture is so efficient, why are America’s small farms
going under? The high capital costs of mechanization can be an economic
disaster for a small operation. A farm must be large to profitably use
technology-intensive methods instead of labor-intensive methods. Sold on
the idea that modernizing meant mechanizing, small farms sank into debt
once overleveraged; large companies then bought up their land. This
process may not help small farms stay in family hands, but it pumps a lot
of cash into companies that produce farm equipment and supplies—and
advise farmers how to use their products.
The economic and social trends that drove mechanization turned farming
into an industry and accelerated soil loss. New equipment made more
intensive cultivation of land easier, to a deeper depth and more often. Just
as in ancient Rome, the ground lay bare and disturbed for much of the
year. As farms mechanized, soil conservation practices such as terracing,
hedgerows, and trees planted for windbreaks became obstacles to maneuvering
heavy machinery. Contour plowing practices were modified to
accommodate large machines that could not follow tight turns on sloping
land. Soil was now a commodity—the cheapest of many inputs to agricultural
manufacturing.
Substantial progress in raising both public and governmental awareness
slowed but did not stop soil loss. Some areas have fared worse than others.
Across the heart of the Midwest, islands of native prairie rising up to six
feet above neighboring plowed fields testify to soil loss of about half an
inch per year since settlement. Iowa lost half its topsoil in the last century
and a half. Fortunate by comparison, the Palouse region of eastern Washington
lost only a third to half of its rich topsoil in the past century.
The first settlers arrived in the Palouse in the summer of 1869. They grew
grain on the valley bottoms and raised cattle and hogs to sell to miners in
nearby Idaho. The region’s deep loess soil could produce more but there
was no way to get crops to market. Completion of the railroads in the 1880s
opened the land to distant markets, new equipment, and more farmers. By
the 1890s most of the Palouse was under cultivation.
dust blow