Last week I touched on an issue which while very much one of concern for farmers is perhaps being discounted at present because it is hard to fully understand just what weather change will mean.
An issue farmers should better understand though is the loss of arable land from erosion.
Perhaps nowhere more so than the Canadian Prairies.
The impact of the drought years of the 1930s did much to forge the resiliency which is being a farmer on the Prairies. While those years are now well in our past, they remain very much part of the collective memory of anyone with a connection to Prairie farming.
The event of the 1930s was severe and devastating because of its impact.
While the focused effect of lack of moisture and wind today is not as concentrated, at least here, erosion is still occurring to arable land at an alarming rate.
鈥淥ne-third of the world鈥檚 arable land has been lost to soil erosion or pollution in the last 40 years, scientists said in research published during climate change talks in Paris,鈥� suggested a recent story out of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
That is a startling figure when you consider we are talking a period starting in the mid-1970s, the era of my high school years. In the ensuing years we have seen farmers, at least again here on the Canadian Prairies become much more erosion conscience.
It was in this time frame programs such as 鈥楽ave Our Soils鈥� were launched.
It was through such efforts farmers began to change cropping systems. The standard had been one where half the land was left to fallow each year as a weed control method which left the land bare and vulnerable to both wind and water erosion.
That evolved to minimum till systems, and ultimately no till, leaving crop stubble and residue as a soil cover to help protect topsoil from being blown, or washed away.
It takes about 500 years to generate 2.5 centimetres of topsoil under normal agricultural conditions, and soil loss has accelerated as demand for food rises, biologists from Britain鈥檚 Sheffield University said in the report, detailed the story.
鈥淪oil is lost rapidly but replaced over millennia, and this represents one of the greatest global threats to agriculture,鈥� Sheffield University biology professor Duncan Cameron said in a statement with the report.
Obviously concepts such as zero till needs to expand to more agricultural areas.
But it goes farther too.
Some crops produce more organized material which help build soils, while others do not. Cropping choices are then part of the issue, although it is hard to weigh soil rebuilding against the need to grow the crops with the best opportunity to reasonable profitability to keep the bills paid.
But there is value in organic matter being returned to the soil.
Farming today relies heavily on fertilization to ensure yields. However, there is a resource pull when it comes to fertilizer production, in particular natural gas.
Will that remain viable long term?
At today鈥檚 resource prices it may well be reasonable, but the issue of soil health is one which must be considered over a much longer term.
It is a finite resource upon which world food production rests.
Soil degradation is an all too real threat to the ability of agriculture to produce the food we need.
And, it has to be remembered that the world population is continuing to expand, with not even a hint anyone will even broach the subject of controlling that side of the equation. As it stands by 2050 the world鈥檚 population is expected to exceed nine billion. That only adds to the urgency to protect our soil resource if we are to keep the world fed.
Imagine if another one third of our soil were lost in the next 40 years, or in essence when we hit the nine billion mouths to feed. It is a prospect that is truly dire and to prevent it, we need to work diligently every year moving forward.
Calvin Daniels is Assistant Editor with Yorkton This Week.
