Land Once Preserved Now Being Farmed

Since the mid-1980s, the U.S. government, in an attempt to reduce the environmental fallout from large-scale farming, has been paying farmers to set aside less-than-ideal land for conservation. The results have been overwhelmingly positive: Soil erosion has been reduced; chemical and fertilizer runoff has eased; habitats for game birds and endangered species have been created and enlarged. The pushback to climate change has been equally noteworthy: In 2007, the lands trapped 50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, making the Conservation Reserve Program the most effective government-funded defense against greenhouse gases on private lands.

"We use this program for everything," said John Johnson, a U.S. Department of Agriculture deputy administrator. "We protect New York City's drinking water with it. We preserve groundwater with it. We protect the salmon habitat in the Pacific Northwest with it. It's a wonderful program."

But dark clouds are forming on the protected fields. Historically, farmers have been eager to participate in the program, and many still are. But as prices for crops have soared, a growing number of farmers have opted to put conservation land back into production. The trend is expected to accelerate--to the grave concern of many observers who caution that years of steady environmental progress could be halted, or even reversed, as buffers and habitats are converted into farmland.

(...)

Much of the slide occurred between September and November, when thousands of farmers with contracts up for renewal chose not to renew them. The atrophy has been well distributed geographically, but it has been particularly acute in states that grow lots of corn and soybeans: In Iowa, 128,000 acres went back into farming; in North Dakota, 250,000 acres; in South Dakota, 300,000 acres. "Wheat, soybean, and corn markets are providing very strong incentives to plant more acreage this fall and next spring," then acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner said at the time. "Producers responded strongly, with corn acres increasing to their highest level since 1944."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20080401/ts_usnews/landoncepreservednowbeingfarmed;_ylt=An6Le09u3.CHOoYikTvtvQMPLBIF

they can plant all that land to corn but they won't be able to spread that nasty superphospate in excess and so it won't run off and down to the ocean to make the dead zones worse. In theory.

I'm guessing that the industrialized nations will continue to afford fertilizers for a while yet.

Almost everyone was 'organic' in the past.

The farmers who can will adapt. Those who depend on chemicals because their soil is worn out will go broke.

It is called Letchworth Park. I was shocked when I last visited with the amount of pollution going over the falls (there are three in the park). The park showed neglect. There are farms/towns who pollute it all along the way. The past Republican govenor abused and ignored the state of the land, air, etc.

Letchworth Park is on the Genesse River which is one of the few to flow North in the US.

I hope not.

Even if it is the same beer named after the river....they do filter the water to remove the pollutants.

No water on earth today is pure. The last drop has something bad in it. The enviornmentals has been trying to tell everyone but they are yelling in the wind. When we see frogs and birds deformed or dying that's a good sign we could too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_geology_of_the_Genesee_River

The Genesse River flows into Lake Ontario.

I grew up next to the Genessee River but further south about 11 miles of Letchworth Park. We used to take a short cut to our town as kids. Along the railroad ran a abandoned small canal. I figure there were also canals from my town to the river, Rochester, and the lake. From the lake you could go east or west to other parts of the country.

The Erie Canal and rivers were the main transportation for farm products to get to market. Immigrants like my great-great grandfather walked along it from NY City to Buffalo, etc. He became a Captain on the Great Lakes. My grandfather and family also worked on the lakes. I remember my grandfather showing hunks of copper on a barge he was on. Infrastructure was important then just like it is today.

The great Seneca Nation (Seneca Council of Nations) were from the area around Letchworth Park. They were examples to Jefferson and Franklin of how a democracy could work in the new world. My older neighbor said the Indians of the area would come into their house when he was a boy and sleep by the fire. In the morning they were gone.

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/

I was young few people locked their doors. Not until about the fifties did it spread from the cities. Now we have security systems which don't keep people from harming us.

ending same, is good

Until it does want it, then it consumes it. There is no such concept as conservation.

while starting new ones in CA which required lots of water. Many of those NY, PA, OH, VA, NC, GA, etc. farms could grow needed food for the market.

It's been years since I've had a good GA peach. There are only a few farms left who do it.

Let's face it. Much of our present food in supermarkets is tasteless and probably full of pesiticides, etc. I want to know where my food is from and what it has in it before I buy or eat it.

The practice of abusing animals in close facilities is frightful and bad for the enviornment. My cousin told me of a farmer in WNY who crowded his cows together on cement. We went by a chicken farm north of Atlanta that smelled so bad in the heat I wondered why they produced them at all in that area. They have to smell those farms for miles. There has been complaints of nearby farmers in Illinois about the pig farms. Corporate farmers are not doing what is best for the community or the enviornment. Controls are needed.

We should grow food instead of mercinaries.