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Friday, December 23rd, 2022

Midwest soil is eroding faster than ever. Modern farming could be to blame.

Author:     John McCracken
Source:     Grist
Publication Date:     10 December 2022
 Link: Midwest soil is eroding faster than ever. Modern farming could be to blame.
Stephan:   I think the United States is headed for food issues that are going to affect all American families, and devastate the poor. As I read the literature there are two major things that are going to create these problems. The first is lack of water in agricultural areas dependent on the Colorado River; the second is the increasing failure, as this article describes, of industrial chemical monoculture agriculture, particularly in the Midwest. Modern agriculture was premised on the idea that the soil was not a living world. That was a major mistake and, as a result, the soil has seriously eroded and the living organisms that made the Midwestern soil so rich and fertile have been replaced with synthetic chemicals from the fertilizers and pesticides that system of agriculture depends upon. The result is going to be shortages and increasing prices. Going to your grocery and seeing $11 heads of lettuce, as has already been reported, may become commonplace.
Credit: sstop / Getty

Midwest soil is eroding at an alarming rate according to new, first-of-its-kind research. 

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts found that the rate of soil erosion in the Midwestern US is 10 to 1,000 times greater than it was before modern agriculture practices reigned supreme across the region. The study found that before modern agriculture, the rate of soil erosion was vastly smaller than what is now deemed an acceptable amount of erosion by the United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA.

“The Midwest is losing soil, for most of these sites, about 100 times faster than it’s forming,” Isaac Larsen, a geoscience professor at the University of Massachusetts and a study co-author, told Grist.

Larsen, an Iowa native, said the loss of soil is a concern across the board, from the fragility of food production to concerns over groundwater pollution. He said the rich soil the Midwest is known for has been eroding and replaced with synthetic chemicals like fertilizers and pesticides.

A different study, released earlier this […]

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