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The Almighty Buck Science

US Pays Farmers Billions To Save The Soil. But It's Blowing Away (npr.org) 186

Posted by msmash from the their-issues dept.
An anonymous reader shares an NPR report: Soil has been blowing away from the Great Plains ever since farmers first plowed up the prairie. It reached crisis levels during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when windblown soil turned day into night. In recent years, dust storms have returned, driven mainly by drought. But Shook -- and others -- say farmers are making the problem worse by taking land where grass used to grow and plowing it up, exposing vulnerable soil. This is where federal policy enters the picture. Most of that grassland was there in the first place because of a taxpayer-funded program. The U.S. Department of Agriculture rents land from farmers across the country and pays them to grow grass, trees and wildflowers in order to protect the soil and also provide habitat for wildlife. It's called the Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP. Ten years ago, there was more land in the CRP than in the entire state of New York. In North Dakota, CRP land covered 5,000 square miles. But CRP agreements only last 10 years, and when farming got more profitable about a decade ago, farmers in North Dakota pulled more than half of that land out of the CRP to grow crops like corn and soybeans. Across the country, farmers decided not to re-enroll 15.8 million acres of farmland in the CRP when those contracts expired between 2007 and 2014.
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US Pays Farmers Billions To Save The Soil. But It's Blowing Away More

US Pays Farmers Billions To Save The Soil. But It's Blowing Away

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  • Make some real money (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Use the land to grow weed. You don't really have to plow it.

  • Corn (Score:5, Insightful)

    by unixcorn ( 120825 ) on Thursday June 08, 2017 @10:55AM (#54576849)

    Farming got more profitable when the government fully embraced ethanol. Farmers plowed under land to grow more corn to supply the government-funded ethanol plants that needed to go into gasoline by government mandate. Now the government is blaming farmers for farming and wanting to change the rules.

    • Re:Corn (Score:4, Informative)

      by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Thursday June 08, 2017 @11:02AM (#54576905)
      Ethanol is profitable only because of the tax incentives. Without the tax incentives, farmers will find something else grow.

      • Without the tax incentives, farmers will find something else grow.

        . . . "grass", ya know, like the type that goes into "funny" cigarettes.

        The farmers will make enough money with that, and won't need any taxpayer money.

        Hey, and then the government can "tax the grass", and actually make money on the scheme.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by elrous0 ( 869638 )

        Yeah, but it is fun to drink.

    • Wasting tax payer dollars because farmers want to plow the land that was protected. Perhaps we should return to those dust bowl days so farmers can learn a hard lesson again.

      • What country do you live in? The one that I know would only throw more tax money at those poor farmers to fix the problem.

      • Re:Corn (Score:5, Insightful)

        by unixcorn ( 120825 ) on Thursday June 08, 2017 @12:00PM (#54577393)

        Farmers rent their land to the CRP program. When the lease is up, the farmers can do what they please. With the promise of skyrocketing corn prices, it made it more attractive to farm the land rather than leaving the land in the program at the end of the lease. It's simple economics and farmers are business people. No taxpayer dollars were wasted.

    • Farming got more profitable when the government fully embraced ethanol. Farmers plowed under land to grow more corn to supply the government-funded ethanol plants that needed to go into gasoline by government mandate. Now the government is blaming farmers for farming and wanting to change the rules.

      Rather, they're blaming farmers for being short-sighted and engaging in farming practices that will be profitable for a decade, and then lose so much topsoil that the land is barren for a hundred years, but hey, "fark you, I got mine," right?

      • It's worse than that. I feel like a fucking bumper sticker because I say this here so often, but the corn used for making fuel is virtually all grown continuously, without crop rotation. This depletes the soil of everything. In cases where they burn the stubble they are at least putting the carbon back into the soil (corn is a heavy soil carbon user) but they are also emitting a bunch of soot.

        • It's worse than that. I feel like a fucking bumper sticker because I say this here so often, but the corn used for making fuel is virtually all grown continuously, without crop rotation. This depletes the soil of everything. In cases where they burn the stubble they are at least putting the carbon back into the soil (corn is a heavy soil carbon user) but they are also emitting a bunch of soot.

          Yep. Harvest everything in the fall, leave it bare over the winter so that the storms can blow away another inch of top soil, then replant in the spring. Even just filling it in with clover for a season would be better, both for preventing erosion and for replacing nitrogen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      A correction, the government is paying farmers to look after land because they are greed driven idiots who happily shit in their own nests. The idea is still stupid, if the idiot farmers are incapable of looking after land, then buy it off them and put it in nature parks, oh wait, more greed driven idiots will fuck that up.

      • No offense but the problem are not farmers per se but the American way of running things: bigger farer wider. Ever looked how a European farm looks in France, Germany or Spain?
        Relatively small fields, surrounded by bushes and trees. Small woods even. After harvest usually some crop that can start growing and survive the winter is planted.
        Ofc we don't have such 'dust bowl' areas, nevertheless in the year 2017 a professional farmer should not be dumber than average educated guy.

      • A correction to your correction. The only reason the type of farming that is causing significant damage is happening is because the govt. pays people for ethanol fuels. Otherwise you'd just have normal plowing cycles with plenty of intermediate crops to keep topsoil loss away and replenish the soil used.

    • When corn prices skyrocketed then leveled off at a much higher price, everyone blamed ethanol. When the price of copper climbed 4X they blamed it on global demand & China. The fact is that commodities when fucking NUTS there for a while during the Great Recession & have normalized somewhere in the last few years. It had little to nothing to do with the multiple bullshit reasons the talking heads spat out daily

      Global pools of wealth gotta go somewhere.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Global pools of wealth gotta go somewhere.

        Back to the workers and shareholders.

        • Global pools of wealth gotta go somewhere.

          Back to the workers and shareholders.

          GD Right. But that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

  • Government is just subsidizing bad practices. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08, 2017 @10:56AM (#54576859)

    If you want the farmers to save their soil, you've got to let them go bankrupt.

  • Tense is everything... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Thursday June 08, 2017 @10:58AM (#54576873)

    Tense is everything, and tense is something the title and summary screws up royally.

    Title says ...

    US Pays Farmers Billions To Save The Soil. But It's Blowing Away

    however the summary says the US stopped paying the farmers that money, because the farmers ceased to renew the enrolments...

    farmers decided not to re-enroll 15.8 million acres of farmland in the CRP when those contracts expired between 2007 and 2014

    The title makes it sound like the farmers are taking the money and eschewing their responsibilities and allowing the soil to blow away - they aren't, those responsibilities expired when the money stopped flowing.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by oh_my_080980980 ( 773867 )
      Really douche bag. RTFA:

      "According to Cox, when farmers decide to take land out of the CRP, it means that most of the money spent on environmental improvements on that land is wasted. "The benefit is lost really quickly," he says."

      Farmed are pulling out of the CRP. The CRP agreements only last 10 years. After the 10 years the farmed pull out as opposed to continue.

      • Really douche bag. RTFA:

        "According to Cox, when farmers decide to take land out of the CRP, it means that most of the money spent on environmental improvements on that land is wasted. "The benefit is lost really quickly," he says."

        Farmed are pulling out of the CRP. The CRP agreements only last 10 years. After the 10 years the farmed pull out as opposed to continue.

        During that 10 year span, or however long the land was set aside, there was a benefit to the environment. Yes, any future benefit disappears when the farmers voluntarily opt out of the program. But the farmer isn't to blame for the fact that the dollars were spent on a temporary fix with no permanent solution.

        The dollars should have been used to buy up the land, not just rent it. For that I blame the people who decided on this program in the first place. My guess is that they might have honestly thought

        • What permanent solution would you suggest? Mowing down the farmers instead of their crops? Because that's pretty much the only thing left possible.

          • Re:Tense is everything... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Thursday June 08, 2017 @11:52AM (#54577323)

            Buy the land, don't rent it. If you rent it, you can't complain when the house you build on the land is torn down after your rental period expires.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by G00F ( 241765 )

            as he stated, buying the land for that use, rather than renting.

            But there are others as well. Such as requiring small portions or large lands to be "native". Such as any farms over 1000 acres require .1% of continuous native landscape.(and other verbiage to prevent a mile long 1 foot wide strip for that purpose)

      • If the government wants to bitch and moan about it, then they should buy the land and then its theirs to do with as they wish, for as long as they wish.

        Farmers electing to not renew the contracts for allowing the land to lay fallow means that they think the money they get for doing so is less than the money they can get from working that land - so basically the government need to make it more of an incentive than they do right now.

        And none of that, including reading the article, changes my point about the t

  • Two problems: tilth and clearing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday June 08, 2017 @11:17AM (#54577021) Homepage Journal

    Tilth is farmers' fault. There are zero-tilth agricultural methods. Clearing is suppliers' fault. They effectively force farmers to clear woods around their property that would slow winds because it also harbors animals that might shit on the lettuce, or what have you. Instead of doing due diligence and actually inspecting produce, they just want to be able to handle it like it's made of plastic.

  • Don't worry about it, we don't need to take care of anything in the environment. Jesus gave us the Earth to rape for profit. I mean, how can we possibly affect the planet? It's so big! Even if we do end up fucking it up, we only move up the start date for the end times, and God will bail us out with the rapture. Not only will we be super rich, but then we get to go to heaven! Bonus!

    • Don't worry about it, we don't need to take care of anything in the environment. Jesus gave us the Earth to rape for profit. I mean, how can we possibly affect the planet? It's so big! Even if we do end up fucking it up, we only move up the start date for the end times, and God will bail us out with the rapture. Not only will we be super rich, but then we get to go to heaven! Bonus!

      Strawman much. I've known a large number of Christians over the years, none of whom you described.

      • Republican is not synonymous with Christian. Many Christians are not Republicans, many Christians are not crazy, and there do exist Republicans who are not any combination of crazy or Christian. However, almost all crazy Christians are Republicans. The party is infested with them.

  • You can save soil by making soil (Score:4, Insightful)

    by butchersong ( 1222796 ) on Thursday June 08, 2017 @11:17AM (#54577029)
    Stop subsidizing corn for corn syrup and ethanol. Make antibiotic use in grain lots illegal. Re-introduce large herds of ruminants to the areas that are no longer profitable to grow grains on. You know, like the Bison and others that actually created the great plains.

    • But that's not how you get cheap food that Big Agri likes to produce. I agree with you but it's not going to happen because the big corporations won't go for it and most people won't go for it either because it means their burgers and steaks will go up in price. Packing cows into a feedlot, filling them full of antibiotics, and stuffing them full of GMO corn produces very relatively inexpensive meat but at a tremendous cost that we are starting to pay.

    • You know, like the Bison and others that actually created the great plains.

      I personally happen to be with you there 100%, I think that restoring the Bison to the great plains would be the best use for that area of the country. That's a hell of a lot of free meat and hides, and we're still eating meat and using leather. But they don't have any respect for any fence that won't stop a truck, so even if you could get your hands on all that land and tear the fences down (or let the Bison do it) it would still involve some fairly extensive infrastructure projects to keep them out of inc

  • The article is not about the US paying farmers, but about farmers refusing to use the program.

    Note, the problem is the poster. but NPR that used a stupid headline.

    Which is a pity because the article is pretty informative, including it's conclusion: The government should be purchasing rather than renting the land. They have the money, it rarely makes sense to rent unimproved land if you can afford to own, and the problem is not going away.

    • The government should be purchasing rather than renting the land.

      The problem is that government-owned land (aside from military bases) is opposed by one of our major political factions. So actually holding own to the purchased land will probably be difficult.

  • Washington bureaucrats got paychecks and pensions. Congressmen used other people's money to buy votes. So the 2 main objectives of the program were wildly successful.

  • Anyone with insights as to what could be done to solve this, or why only growing grass and not plowing is the only solution?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Khyber ( 864651 )

      First question: Plant kudzu everywhere. It's how we stopped it before. The only solution is more plants that hold the soil down, because that's essentially all they do besides converting nutrients into biomass, then dying and turning back into fertile topsoil.

    • No-till farming is one possible mitigation. This is where you don't plow up the field between plantings, but rather just drill new seeds directly down into the soil. So the previous season's roots and whatnot hold the soil together while the new season grows. Unfortunately this is "change", and farmers hate change, not to mention they're already heavily invested in expensive machinery that plows. Hydroponics are another good solution, but again, change is scary.

      • So rather than paying for the growing of grass, funds could be used to inform and provide financial incentive to alternative farming methods?
        Seems rather obvious and one can only wonder why it was not mentioned in the article.

        As this concerns land that was not previously used, I'd guess that most investments are in surplus capacity machinery from other fields.

        (Unless you work at a farm shoveling shit your username is seriously missleading).

    • You need something to hold the soil together. Plowing breaks up the soil so that wind can blow it away.

      The solutions are:

      1. 1. Don't break up the soil (no-till farming). This is a difficult sell when farmers have spent lots of money on equipment for tilling and you now want them to spend lots of money on equipment for not tilling.
      2. 2. Slow down the wind. You can do this by doing things like planting trees around the farm. The issue here is the significant reduction in farmland (you need more than 1 thin lin

      • The disadvantage here is you can't grow any crops on the land while animals are grazing on it.

        Sounds like you've got a meat crop to me.

      • You need something to hold the soil together. Plowing breaks up the soil so that wind can blow it away.

        The solutions are:

        1. 1. Don't break up the soil (no-till farming). This is a difficult sell when farmers have spent lots of money on equipment for tilling and you now want them to spend lots of money on equipment for not tilling.

        But isn't that mainly overcapacity from other investments, as this land hasn't been used for some time?

        2. Slow down the wind. You can do this by doing things like planting trees around the farm. The issue here is the significant reduction in farmland (you need more than 1 thin line of trees), as well as wildlife that like living in forests while eating crops.

        3. Put something on the soil you don't harvest, like grass and wildflowers. That's the program in the OP.

        4. Make more soil in places where it has been depleted. You can do this by doing things like letting animals graze on the land for a while. The manure + dirt will produce more soil. The disadvantage here is you can't grow any crops on the land while animals are grazing on it. Also whether you use natural or artificial means to create that soil, the new soil will blow away soon.

        I was wondering about that last one, as I'd guess that artificial fertalizers would create more soil.

  • His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the cra

  • ...will be People.

  • For a background on how bad it's gotten (and by extension how bad it can get), this [goodreads.com] is about the best, most engaging history of the last time I've come across.

  • Either the land is in CPR and not being plowed, but being paid for the conservation effort.

    Or they took the land out of CPR and are no longer being paid, but because they are plowing soil is eroding from wind.

    The headline makes it seem like we're paying them to plow CPR lands.

  • We have been here before. Timothy Egan wrote a book that I highly recommend called "The Worst Hard Times" that fully describes how the prairie was "mined" for its ability to grow crops—an ability that was created over millennia of the creation of soil by the sod, the plants that were there and by the animals that freely roamed the Great Plains.

    From the book:

    First came the tragedy of settling in an unsettled land encouraged by rising food prices, war, and real-estate speculation. Then came the tragedy

  • CRP and property taxes (Score:4, Informative)

    by mhatle ( 54607 ) on Thursday June 08, 2017 @01:05PM (#54577925) Homepage

    There is another factor not covered. At least in Minnesota there used a be a property tax exemption for land that was under CRP. You would pay a significantly reduced property tax vs farmable land. They removed this exemption about 10 years ago now, and since that as CRP expires farmers would rather farm it, then pay the taxes as if they were farming it -- but without the associated yearly income.

    • People are motivated by incentives.

      I think on the east coast most land is zoned "residential/agricultural" but they also aren't taxing based on the "zone" that they designated it, but instead on the "assessed value" of the land.

      When it doesnt make sense to farm it, ... no farm .. different assessment. If its the same assessment either way... well fuck... that is the state creating slaves .. and not useful ones either

  • Most of that grassland was there in the first place because of a taxpayer-funded program.

    I think most of the grassland was there before taxpayers existed.

  • Grow less food and feed crops. Turn the land back into grassland and graze cattle. Eat the cattle. Vegetarians BTFO.

  • A lot of my family is from the heartland, and according to what i've heard, a big part of the problem is that the CRP program was fraught with fraud from the beginning.
    Land owners who where ostensibly not actually farming would plow up big tracts of their grassland, then apply for CRP, get their money, and then just ignore the land, which let invasive weeds take root in place of native grasses, as well as dust blowing off of newly plowed, and then unused land.
    You can see it yourself traveling through a

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