Lovers of the land call for farm programs against soil loss and degradation, for rural communities

One of the first New Deal farm programs was the Soil Conservation Service, successor to the inaptly named Soil Erosion Service. Now it's part of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the Department of Agriculture, but the ethic of soil stewardship lives on in county soil conservation districts -- and in the minds of thoughtful folks like farmer-author Wendell Berry of Kentucky, right, and Wes Jackson, a plant geneticist and president of The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. In The New York Times today, they call attention to the parlous health of our nation's soil.

Soil "is as nonrenewable as (and far more valuable than) oil. Unlike oil, it has no technological substitute — and no powerful friends in the halls of government," they write. Soil erosion and depletion "never enough noticed, has been made worse by the huge monocultures and continuous soil-exposure of the agriculture we now practice. To the problem of soil loss, the industrialization of agriculture has added pollution by toxic chemicals, now universally present in our farmlands and streams. ... Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities."

Berry and Jackson recommend a return to crop rotations that include pasture for hay and grazing, and the "more radical response" of research to develop perennial versions of major grain crops. (Rye may offer the best immediate prospect.) And they call for "a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities." (Read more)