Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

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With the ground left bare during fallow periods, severe erosion reduced
crop yields within a few years on much of the newly cleared land. At the
program’s peak, Soviet agriculture lost more than three million acres a
year—not a good way to fulfill a five-year plan. Severe erosion damaged
almost half the newly plowed land during the next dry spell in the 1960s,
creating a little-publicized Soviet dust bowl that helped drive Khrushchev
from office.
Before 1986 Soviet censors hid the extent of environmental problems.
Foremost among those problems was the Aral Sea disaster. In 1950 the
Soviet government initiated a major effort to achieve “cotton independence”
by turning the region into monocultural plantations. The Soviets
greatly increased crop yields through improved cultivation techniques,
aggressive fertilizer and pesticide use, and by expanding irrigation and
mechanized agriculture. From 1960 to 1990 thousands of miles of new
canals and more than six hundred dams diverted rivers from the Aral Sea.
Not surprisingly, the sea began to shrink.
As the Aral Sea dried out, so did the surrounding land. By 1993, decades
of continuous water diversion lowered the water level almost fifty-five feet,
creating a new desert on the exposed seabed. Major dust storms in the
1990s dropped a hundred million tons of Aral salt and silt on Russian
farms a thousand miles away. The collapse of both the fishing industry and
agriculture triggered a mass exodus.
A post-glasnost regional assessment revealed that desertification affected
two-thirds of arid lands in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
Proposals to address this growing threat went nowhere before the Soviet
Union disintegrated. Independence only increased the desire to pursue
cash crops for export, moving the fight against soil erosion to the bottom
of the political agenda. Despite the clear long-term threat, more immediate
concerns prevailed.
A similar situation developed in the small southern Russian Kalmyk
Republic tucked between the River Volga and the Caspian Sea. Between
the Second World War and the 1990s, aggressive plowing of rangelands
desertified most of the republic. Almost a tenth of the country turned into
barren wasteland.
Kalmykia’s native grasslands were ideal for livestock. As early as the
twelfth century, Kalmyks brought cattle to the region where horses were
said to graze without bending their heads. Traditional land use centered
around horse breeding and sheep or cattle grazing. Accused of collaborat-
dust blow