Can the health of American soil make a comeback?
~ The Impacts of not Maintaining Soil Health ~
The United States was once known for having some of the best soil for growing crops you can find anywhere in the world. Our soil could once consistently put out very high numbers of some of the best and most nutritious crops in the world. Now after decades of very few changes in the methods of the agricultural industry, the once-famous soil found only in America is a thing of the past. But it doesn't have to be. This Politico article by Jenny Hopkinson explains some reasons behind the decline of American topsoil, some effects that has had, and how the future of healthy soil can be reshaped.
In order to compensate for the increasingly low numbers of crops being produced from this worn-out topsoil, alternate measures have had to be used. For many years now, farms all over the country have been turning to spraying their crops with tons fertilizers and herbicides to desperately try to still turn a profit. Since the soil has been being tilled for decades, it has become extremely dry, prone to drought, and it cannot hold water. Therefore, the countless gallons of fertilizers and herbicides that have been sprayed onto the soil just runoff with the water, which just flow downhill to any and every nearby body of water, polluting once-clean rivers, swamps, ponds, and lakes all over the country. Plants in and near the water cannot handle these harsh chemicals so they die. Then this effects any creatures which rely on these plants as a food source. All the fish in the water instantly die by the thousands when these chemicals flood their homes. The countless species of animals which rely on these bodies of water for their sources of drinking water are then poisoned and killed. Nature was not supposed to come into contact with these chemicals from farms.
Then there are the massive human health hazards that come from the continuous use of fertilizers and herbicides on crops all over the country for many years. Simply put, people cannot handle and are not meant to be able to handle ingesting these chemicals that have been sprayed onto crops for decades to turn a profit. Sicknesses and diseases, like cancer, are common results of consuming these dangerous chemicals that shouldn't even be necessary in order to successfully grow food. Runoff from farms that contains loads of these chemicals pollutes our sources of safe drinking water as well. In this day and age, it is extremely easy to consume lots of these chemicals from farms without even realizing it: both directly from the crops, and as runoff in our drinking water.
Advances in farming equipment technology have made the jobs easier on the farmers over the years, but the methods have generally remained the same for decades. Soil has always just been seen as the medium for crops to be planted in and grown from, and soil health has been taken for granted. Government regulations have also been preventing any sort of positive changes from occurring on farms. The federal crop insurance program makes farmers keep records on every crop they plant and the location, and prevents them from making any changes to the crop types or locations - helping make the soil very worn out. The rules are not flexible, and cannot take things like cover crops into consideration. There are no incentives for farmers to try new methods, and the government program will payout, regardless of if they use good practices that maintain soil health, or if they use the bad practices which got them into this situation in the first place.
This Rodale Institute article featured a great example on the importance of crop rotation. If a farmer has corn planted in a field, he could plant beans in that field after the corn harvest is complete. Corn consumes lots of nitrogen from the soil as it grows, and beans return nitrogen to the soil. Then the soil would be replenished, and the cycle of planting corn and beans could later be repeated. There would be enough nitrogen in the soil from the beans, that the farmer could successfully grow lots of corn again. Different types of plants and crops all have their own unique needs from the soil. So when one crop drains the soil of a specific nutrient, another crop needs to go in its place to replenish the soil. Then the first crop can be replanted and successfully grown in the original location again. This simple concept is crucial in ensuring growing high numbers of crops and in making sure that the soil is healthy enough to be able to handle it.
~ More Types of Human Impact ~
The United States uses its fair share of plastic and then some. You probably dispose of a plastic item every day. Chances are you recycle the item and think that it'll go somewhere in the U.S. where it'll be turned into another object and get sent on its way, but that's unfortunately not the case. This article from The Guardian talks about what is really happening when you think you're doing the right thing by recycling. They conducted an investigation which discovered where America's plastic really goes. Hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic are shipped from the U.S. to some of the poorest and least-developed countries around the world, every single year, for the extremely unsanitary and unsafe process of recycling. The countries which receive the shipments of our plastic do not have the money or resources to effectively deal with them. Sometimes people in these poor countries are paid just dollars a day to sort through the trash and separate the recyclable materials from the un-recyclable materials. Other times, the only option is to burn the plastics, as the lack of money and resources allows for no other choice. Either way, lots of this plastic and its pollutants just end up where they're not supposed to be. The ocean is now home to tons of plastic that was being "recycled", polluting the water with dangerous chemicals, and killing the animals and plants that call the ocean their home. When the plastic is burned, it releases loads of deadly cancer-causing chemicals into the air that people breathe, slowly killing them after making them violently sick.
There is a theme between these two human impacts: the water and the air are being polluted with deadly chemicals that shouldn't be there in the first place, but are only there due to ignorant misuse or mismanagement of substances or objects containing toxic chemicals. Even though farmers aren't purposely polluting the air and water with chemicals from runoff from their farms, it still has just as dangerous of an effect as plastic being burned or thrown in the ocean from poor countries which can't manage America's plastic trash. People, plants, and animals are still getting extremely sick and/or dying as a result of both of these human impacts.
If you looked at the United States from space from 50 years ago and then again today, you'd see that lots of land has been cleared out all over the nation. Jonathan Foley explained in this TED Talk that agriculture is behind lots of land clearing that you'd notice. With an increasingly high human population, the demand for food is higher than ever. Therefore more land has been cleared to make way for more farming for more food. Much of the planet's useful land is already being used for growing crops. Roughly 16 million square kilometers all over the world to be exact. That's approximately the size of South America. Now farmers are turning to land which typically isn't useable for farming, such as a lettuce farm in an Arizona desert. Farms like these are becoming increasingly more necessary, yet they are only possible by spraying the crops with loads of water. All of that water has to come from somewhere, so tons of bodies of water all over the place are drying up and becoming completely empty, taking away crucial sources of drinking water for both humans and animals. Whether from dangerous runoff from dry soil that can't hold water, plastic inevitably ending up in the ocean, or farms using too much water to grow crops in unpractical areas, the planet's bodies of water are being poisoned or emptied, which drastically affects everyone.
~ What Everyone Can do to Help ~
We, in Keene, are involved in the impacts I've mentioned, but it doesn't have to be that way. By eating non-organic foods that are coming from farms from who knows where, you're possibly supporting farms which don't take care of their soil, causing chemical runoff. You may even be ingesting chemicals from both the foods you eat and the water you drink, but in very small amounts that you shouldn't lose any sleep over. Not being careful when throwing away your food or any disposable objects isn't doing the recycling situation any good, as either the whole container of trash could be contaminated, or the parts that are actually recyclable will have to be sorted out, and the rest will be burned or end up in the ocean.
Luckily there are simple ways to reduce your impact in the cases I've previously mentioned. Eating more organic foods when possible will drastically reduce the amount of chemicals you are at risk for consuming. Buying food from local farms or supporting restaurants that buy their ingredients from local farms will help ensure that you know which farms you're supporting and what their methods are. That'll also motivate other farms to start heading in the right direction. Believe it or not, throwing away your trash is often better for the environment than recycling it. At least this way the trash stays around here, and it doesn't end up being burned in another country or in the bottom of the ocean. While eliminating your impacts altogether is impossible, you can easily make a small difference and at least reduce them.
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