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

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.

Comments

Tense is everything...

[Richard_at_work]

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:Tense is everything...

[oh_my_080980980]

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.

Re:Corn

[__aaclcg7560]

Ethanol is profitable only because of the tax incentives. Without the tax incentives, farmers will find something else grow.

Re:sounds like a shakedown

[msauve]

Bullshit.

Family farms comprise 99 percent of U.S. farms, accounting for 89 percent of production. Small farms make up 90 percent of farms, operating nearly half of farmland. Still, large family farms accounted for 42 percent of production in 2015.

- US Dept. of Agriculture

CRP and property taxes

[mhatle]

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.

Re:No-till is cheaper for who ?

[LunaticTippy]

You don't have to use herbicides/pesticides for no-till farming. You can use cover crops, solarization, mulch, there are also organic no-till farms proliferating like um weeds.

Besides, tilling is so awful for the environment and human health using roundup is probably the greener approach.