The dirt on soil loss
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...Agricultural Resource Service’s Wind Erosion Research Unit. The Land Institute, an agricultural research group, is crossbreeding major annual food crops like corn and wheat with wild grasses to produce perennial plants that would never need tilling and only rarely need replanting. The first of these crops, whose 18 foot roots would anchor soil better than shallow-rooted annuals, are still in the experimental phase. But planting existing perennial crops, like alfalfa, is a viable option for farmers with erosion problems. “It is a good alternative, especially on fragile lands,” says Larry Mitchell, the CEO of the American Corn Growers Association.

Genetically modified crops have also been put forward as a solution to soil loss, and they offer many advantages. Herbicide resistant crops, like Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybean, allow farmers to spray crops liberally with herbicide instead of plowing weeds under. Crops that have been genetically engineered for salt tolerance have the potential to not only grow in salt-ravaged soils, but to absorb the salt from them, renewing their fertility. GM crops are controversial, however, because of their unknown environmental effects and because they are often engineered not to produce seeds, forcing farmers to buy new seeds each year from the corporation that developed the crop.

But no matter the advantages, GM crops and new farming techniques cost money to implement, something third world farmers don’t have. Increasing soil loss in these countries, and the poverty and hunger that result, goes largely unchecked because it “happens in places that the world is not interested in,” says El-Baz. One major roadblock is that people don’t know about the issue. “There are efforts to make policy-makers aware of this problem,” says El-Baz. “What I don’t see is an international effort to help people.” Getting assistance for people whose land is dying around them is going to require a major effort from an international organization like the United Nations, Lal says. “It’s going to take trillions and trillions of dollars to set the earth back the way it should be,” he adds. “But it’s doable.” r

photo credit: photogallery.nrcs.usda.gov