Another Dustbowl

 The idea of such high quantities of land in the country being dedicated to monoculture should provide some shock factor not only because the sheer amount of land used for corn in the United States is more so than the total land mass of Japan but also because of the negative effects created by monoculture. Jahren mentions that “corn plants require lavish amounts of fertilizer, (29)” and this is important to understand because planting a crop as demanding as corn year after year depletes the soil of much- needed nutrients, which will take years to replenish, whether naturally or by human hand. In the case of monoculture, replenishing by human hand in the form of fertilizer is the only option for a farmer to see any sort of consistent yield. This fertilizer, if applied at the wrong time in the plant’s growth, in the wrong amount, or after a rainfall, can be carried away by wind or percolate into our groundwater supply. Couple that with the fact that 1000 acre farms cannot realistically operate without the aid of heavy farm equipment that compact the soil underneath and create more runoff fertilizer, and we have massive amounts of unused fertilizer from a crop we already produce in excess. Once that corn is harvested, the soil is left with little of the structure or nutrients it had before and is heavily compacted. So the heavy plow is run over the fields to break up the compaction created partially by its own huge tires, but then the fine soil particles that separated from the rest of the soil are sent into the air, joining their fertilizer partners. This cycle of planting the same nutrient- greedy crop and supplementing with chemical fertilizer that will find its way into our water streams and air is what led to The Dust Bowl, and without the implementation of conservation farming methods, could create another one.  

This week: two comments and this essay

Semester total: 10 points