Soil Stewardship For Healthy Landscapes

 

During the middle of the 20th Century, a European visitor asked an Iowa farmer, “how deep does your black soil go?” to which the farmer is reported to have answered “All the way, I guess.”

 

This rich, black topsoil, that has supported agriculture and, indeed, national prosperity since the time of settlement in the nineteenth century, resulted from long-term development beneath the extensive Great Plains prairies. The farmer’s answer portrays a long held attitude that this extraordinary resource was inexhaustible.

 

Research focused on both agricultural production and natural resource conservation has revealed that mollisols, the prairie derived soils that support U.S. grain production which exceeds levels anywhere else on the globe, are at ever greater risk from degradation and erosion.

 

Decisions to cultivate previously undisturbed grasslands contribute to the growing risk. Several recent studies have evaluated changes in land cover in an effort to document how changes may influence sustainability of desirable landscapes.

 

One study, Estimated South Dakota Land Use Change from 2006 to 2012, documented recent land use changes in South Dakota from spatial images and land cover classifications. An economic study, New SDSU Survey on Land Use Decisions Highlights Role of Grasslands, described how financial conditions contributed to the decision to maintain or convert land use. Another study entitled Forecasting Unintended Consequences of Grassland Conversion modeled a range of complex, interacting factors to understand and predict how conditions modify land use decisions using a Systems Dynamics approach. This study also forecasted future land use change under various economic and social scenarios.

 

While land use changes have occurred and are expected to continue into the future, what remains unclear is what continued conversion will mean for producers and those who work in the agriculture industry. What sorts of risks will be faced in terms of soil loss? What can be done to turn the tide? These questions will be addressed in a series of workshops scheduled for mid-June entitled Soil Stewardship for Healthy Landscapes.

 

Workshops will be held June 14 at the SDSU Extension Watertown Regional Center, June 15 at the University Center in Pierre, and June 16 at the SDSU Extension Sioux Falls Regional Center.