Kentucky Soil Conservation
Grace Lowe
Did you know that only 1/4 of the world is land and only 1/8 of that land can be farmed and only 1/32 is used to farm? Many different people are concerned about this and are trying to prevent another dust bowl. Continue reading to see who has concerns, about what, how to prevent another dust bowl, and to learn about how other people are protecting the soil through conservation districts.
As I mentioned before many different types of people are concerned about conserving soil. Farmers want to know how well soil can produce crops, environmental engineers need to know how well soil can purify it’s self when faced with contaminates, constructors have to know how well soil can support weight, Wild life advocates have to think about soil’s ability to provide food and shelter for animals, gardeners try to figure out how well soil cam provide food for them and their families.
The Dust Bowl was a time in the 1930’s when many dust storms devastated the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl was mostly because of poor farming and soil erosion in the time before the drought that also contributed to The Dust Bowl. After The Dust Bowl people began to form local conservation districts. These districts helped educate local landowners on how to farm responsibly and how to not make the same mistakes that caused The Dust Bowl. A lot of BMPs (best management practices) are offered through the Conservation districts some examples of the BMPs are: no-till planting, strip cropping, rotational grazing, planting vegetative buffers along streams, etc.
Every Kentucky County is represented by a local conservation district. Each conservation district creates and implements practices to protect soil and water. These conservation districts also come up with new BMPs to protect soil in Kentucky. They have figured out things like; growing plants makes soil healthier, tilling is not good for soil, etc.
In conclusion we need to prevent another Dust Bowl, we need to know how well soil can produce crops, and we need to be able to depend on our soil to be a stable base for all of our buildings. The 1/128 of the world we are farming needs to be protected and the local conservation districts can’t do it alone they need our help!