biofuels converting U.S. prairie lands at dust bowl rates

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/biofuels-converting-us-prairielands-dust-bowl-rates-1361716993-0




The rush for biofuels in the United States has seen farmers converting the United States’ prairie lands to farms at rates comparable with deforestation levels in Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia – rates not seen here since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

A new study finds that, between 2006 and 2011, U.S. farmers converted more than 1.3 million acres of grassland into corn and soybean fields. Driven by high crop prices, biofuel subsidies and a confluence of other factors, states like Iowa and South Dakota have been turning some five percent of prairie into cropland each year, according to the report’s authors, Christopher Wright and Michael Wimberly of South Dakota State University.

The researchers suggest that farmers are growing crops on increasingly marginal land, in part because the federal government offers subsidized crop insurance in case of failure. In Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, for instance, corn and soy are planted in areas that are especially vulnerable to drought.

Numerous incentives have encouraged the ploughing of grasslands. The federal system of financial payments to grain farmers has long encouraged conversion of grasslands to farms, but in recent years new subsidies for corn ethanol and other biofuel production have significantly stepped up this inducement.

[dipsydoodle]

1. That was the direct cause of the dustbowl.

You'd have thought they'd have learned a lesson since then.

[xchrom]

2. wouldn't you? nt

[dipsydoodle]

3. I didn't really appreciate and undertand the history of that subject

until I bought and watched Ken Burns "The Dustbowl"

[xchrom]

4. love that doc. heart breaking. nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Guess no one in Congress has seen the doc.

Insanity. Sheer insanity.
Over and over and over again.

It is almost as if they cannot ruin the planet fast enough.

[newfie11]

5. Without irrigation they won't be growing it much longer

Our corn is feed corn and this farm was first farmed back when they were building sod houses.

Our irrigation canals were built by the CCC.
Water comes from big lakes in Wyoming mountains.
No snow pack is limiting irrigation water. Last summer farms with more recent irrigation rights than ours (1930's) were refused water.

Most counties in WY, NE, and I think SD are not allowing new irrigation wells to be drilled.

My point is I am not sure how anyone could plow up fields and farm in this country without irrigation and there ain't no more of it. I live near Scottsbluff NE. 60 miles from the borders of CO/WY

[dbackjon]

7. And in the meantime, destorying habitat that native birds, animals, etc need.

[ellenfl]

8. fly-over country is becoming even more fly-over.

as for turning our country into oil fields, all those celebrating their new found wealth will find out what karma is . . . at least their kids will . . . once the land is totally useless.