Corn requires more fossil fuel-based nitrogen fertilizer than many other crops. Tanks of pressurized anhydrous ammonia fixes nitrogen in the soil, but heavy rains can wash nitrogen into waterways. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Government-funded programs that pay for
conservation on farmland have done a lot to
improve the environment over the past twenty
years. The federal government has paid farmers
to take some cropland and set it aside to protect
waterways and wildlife habitat. In the second of
our two-part series on ethanol, Julie Grant reports
that some of that conservation is being stalled:
Transcript
Government-funded programs that pay for
conservation on farmland have done a lot to
improve the environment over the past twenty
years. The federal government has paid farmers
to take some cropland and set it aside to protect
waterways and wildlife habitat. In the second of
our two-part series on ethanol, Julie Grant reports
that some of that conservation is being stalled:
A good hard rain can wash a lot of valuable soil off a farm field.
John Wallbrown grows corn and soybeans on his farm. He says losing
soil is just like losing money. The soil carries with it all the
nutrients he’s put in the fields to help the crops grow, things such as
nitrogen and phosphorous. Wallbrown says he’s put in a good number of
grass waterways through the fields to help filter the water and hold on
to that soil:
“And so when you put in a grass waterway, it dramatically reduces the
amount of erosion. And it is just better for the water supply, better
for our crop. We’re keeping our soil in our field as opposed to it
getting put away.”
What Wallbrown calls nutrients in the field are considered pollution
once they wash into rivers and lakes. So Wallbrown says planting grass
near waterways is good for everyone. Except it means he’s got to use
land that otherwise could be growing crops, and that’s a loss of
income.
Wallbrown has gotten various government assistance to offset those
losses. The largest program, is called the Conservation Reserve Program, known as the
CRP for short.
John Johnson is with the US Department of Agriculture. He says when
you add up all the farms like John Wallbrown’s around the country, the
CRP is making a huge difference in reducing agricultural runoff into
waterways:
“Over 450 million tons of topsoil annually are prevented from eroding
because of CRP. We’ve got lots of really good benchmarks and measurements of
success of CRP, in both water quality, soil erosion and wildlife
habitat.”
But that set-aside land is in demand these days. There’s been a huge
call for bio-fuels to help reduce American dependence on foreign oil.
Bio-fuels are made from crops such as soybeans and corn, especially
corn. So Johnson says the government has decided to stop enrolling
new farmland into the conservation program:
“The overriding concern was that there is a need for a larger supply of
corn and soybeans and wheat production right now, so given the need for
that production, let’s just take a pause right now from enrolling large
acreage of additional farmland into the CRP.”
Corn is used to make ethanol, a fuel that’s now commonly blended with
gasoline. That’s caused corn prices to nearly double so farmers say
they’re planting 12 million acres more corn this year than last year.
That’s the most corn grown in the US in more than 50 years.
Ralph Grossi, director of the American Farmland Trust, says corn needs a
lot more nitrogen fertilizer than other crops. And when it rains,
nitrogen moves quickly from the fields to the waterways. That’s
especially true when grass strips don’t filter the runoff.
Grossi says that nitrogen drains into creeks and rivers from 36 states
into the Mississippi River and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. There
it causes huge algae blooms that then die, sink, and the decaying
matter causes low oxygen in the water called hypoxia. That’s why the
Corn Belt has been blamed for creating a huge dead zone in the Gulf of
Mexico each year:
“If you increase corn production and don’t add the conservation practices
it will add nutrients and exacerbate problems in the gulf with hypoxia.
But it’s not just in the gulf, it’s problems for every local water
district that has to purify water for drinking and other urban
purposes. As they have to contend with more nutrients, that increases
their costs of cleaning the water.”
Grossi says the best place to clean the water is at the source. He
says that’s why the government must continue to help farmers pay for
grass waterways and buffer strips – those things prevent farm nutrients
from getting into the water in the first place. He says the need for
grass waters is even greater now that so much farmland is being planted
in corn to meet the demand for more ethanol.
For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.