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How the Farm Bill, Conceived in Dust Bowl Desperation, Became One Of IT WAS THE 1930S, and rural people clung sugarbeet, dust rose to meet their gaze. because there was no feed. We also had extensive root systems that can withstand to the land as if it were a part of them, “The dust storms, they just come in a grasshopper plague. There would be the extreme weather on the plains. While as integral as bone or sinew. But the land boiling like angry clouds,” remembers so many flying, they would darken the a nine-year drought has been dragging betrayed them—or they betrayed it, Maxine Nickelson, 81, who lives near sun. It was really, really hard times.” the region by the heels, farmers—and the depending on the telling of history. Oakley, Kansas, less than 10 miles from Times have changed. Now, when the landscape—aren’t facing anything near In the black-and-white portraits of the the farm where she grew up during the wind blows at The Nature Conservancy’s the desperation of the 1930s. time, dismay is palpable, grooves of anx- Dust Bowl. “The dust piles would get 17,000-acre Smoky Valley Ranch, 15 That the country hasn’t seen another iety worn deep around the eyes. In scat- so high they’d cover up the fence posts miles south of where Nickelson grew up, Dust Bowl is testament to advances in tered fields throughout the country, along the roads. Yeah, it was bad. We it whispers through a thriving shortgrass farming equipment and cultivation prac- farmers took the stitching out of the soil had to use a scoop shovel to take dirt prairie. For the most part, the dust is still. tices and other shifts in farming tech- and turned the earth upside down, so the out of the house. The people were very Land that once was plowed under and niques. But perhaps the most significant old saying goes. Decades of bad farming discouraged. They thought something farmed—or “broke out,” as farmers changes have stemmed from the farming practices had eroded topsoil that had was turning against them. There was lit- say—has been reseeded with buffalo and community’s embrace of conservation, accumulated for centuries; then came tle rain. Daddy had to sell all the cattle gamma grasses. Such native plants have largely spurred by the federal Farm years of drought, and the land simply green fields gave up. As farmers looked out over acres of what once was wheat, corn or 1930s How the Farm Bill, conceived in Dust Bowl CONSERVATION KICKOFF The Dust Bowl hits the desperation, central United States and Canada; in response, President Roosevelt signs into law the Agricultural became one of Adjustment Act of 1933, which provides direct payments to farmers who cut production of crops the world’s and livestock. After the Supreme Court finds direct payments unconstitutional, the law is rewritten in most powerful 1936 to provide payments for soil conservation. forces for conservation. BY REBECCA CLARREN PHOTOGRAPHS [CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT] © BETTMANN/CORBIS; ASSOCIATED PRESS (2); BETTMANN/CORBIS 42 | nature conservancy | spring 2007 saving the last great places on earth | 43 Bill’s huge pool of financial incentives gress is expected to reauthorize a new BACK IN THE 1920S AND ’30S, when Maxine crusader for farmland conservation, pub- farmers and an employee at the USDA’s drama goes a long way. On the morning rewarding farmers for efforts to sustain Farm Bill, though it’s a sure bet that this Nickelson was growing up poor in lished a report for the U.S. Department Bureau of Soils, argued in countless jour- of the hearing, he rechecked the weather soil, water and wildlife habitats. time there will be less money available. Kansas, a number of ideas about farming of Agriculture titled “Soil Erosion, A nal articles and speeches that soil erosion reports calling for a major dust storm to A piece of legislation reauthorized With a historic budget deficit, maintain- techniques were grounded more in tradi- National Menace.” The report made an caused by farming practices—if left roll into Washington, D.C., out of the every five or six years, the Farm Bill is ing existing conservation funds won’t be tion than science. Farmers were raised on almost puritanical call for the nation to unchecked—would hinder the nation’s Ohio Valley. As the hearing dragged on, mostly known for its commodity-support easy. Even so, the Conservancy is work- the old conceit that rain would follow reform what it called “the evils of … land ability to produce food. By 1930, largely the storm arrived on cue. Bennett asked programs, which subsidize production of ing with other conservation and agricul- the plow, which proved disastrous when wastage” and stressed “the need for because of his undaunted dedication, the senators to move from the great more than two dozen crops, including tural groups to seed America’s farm a decade of high rainfall in the 1920s increased practical information.” Congress had authorized funding for a mahogany table to gaze out the win- wheat, rice and cotton. Few people realize future with an environmental ethos. was followed by drought in the 1930s. “What,” Bennett asked, “would be small group of experimental field sta- dows on the baleful storm. “Everything that the legislation is also the largest single “The Farm Bill is such a powerful And many farmers, as a matter of pride, the feeling of this Nation should a for- tions that demonstrated how farmers moved along quite nicely thereafter,” source of federal funding for conservation tool to help fight some of the threats to planted their crops in neatly tailored, eign nation suddenly enter the United could prevent soil erosion. But Bennett recalled Bennett years later. on private land in the United States: $20 agricultural lands and to help farmers unbending rows. This practice of disre- States and destroy 90,000 acres of land, wanted more support and money. The soil conservation act of 1935 billion in the past five years alone. and ranchers continue their traditional garding contours and hillsides often cre- as erosion has been allowed to do in a Called to testify before the Senate created the Soil Conservation Service, For nearly 15 years, The Nature Con- lifestyles,” says Adrienne Wojciechowski, ated furrows for rain and wind to wash single county?” Public Lands Committee, Bennett and Bennett became its first chief (a servancy has been working with Con- a federal policy advisor with the Con- away the soil’s nutrients. Fueled by such Bennett, the son of North Carolina showed that then, like now, a little bit of position he held until he retired in gress to steer funding from the Farm Bill servancy. “Farming and conservation practices, erosion was silently scraping 1951). The agency started up field toward landscapes with high conserva- have a lot of mutual goals, and we want away the country’s farmlands. offices throughout the country to help tion value. The last Farm Bill, passed by to see those lifestyles and economies con- But the folly of such practices wasn’t farmers develop plans to save soil. Congress in 2002, provided record fund- tinue while protecting our natural unanticipated by everyone. In 1928, Young boys and men, hired by President ing for the environment. This year, Con- resources at the same time.” Hugh Hammond Bennett, the original Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, 1940s 1950s COPING WITH EXCESS Crop prices slump as a result of increased WARTIME DEMAND The Soil Conservation Service, a federal competition from conservation program headed up by “Big” Hugh Hammond recovering postwar Bennett, educates farmers about soil conservation and economies in Europe improved farming techniques. But conservation concerns and Asia. In response, take a back seat when farmers ramp up production to meet U.S. federal officials PHOTOGRAPHS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) © BETTMANN/CORBIS; WALLACE KIRKLAND/TIME LIFE the demands of war with Germany and Japan. create programs to PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES; BETTMANN/CORBIS cope with excess com- modities such as pota- toes and wheat. One program, the Soil Bank, aims to boost prices by taking 29 million PHOTOGRAPHS [LEFT TO RIGHT] © ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; FRANCIS MILLER/TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES acres out of production for conservation. 44 | nature conservancy | spring 2007 saving the last great places on earth | 45 would help farmers create terraces, handy and legal way to bring farm fami- crops to feed troops and a hungry farmers on the plains had tilled up grass- half saw their numbers drop significantly. When the Farm Bill came up for reau- replant trees for wildlife habitat and lies like Nickelson’s some desperately world market, tilling up acres of land lands they had idled for conservation Populations of the lark bunting and thorization that year, a small coalition of control gullies. By mid-1936, the service needed economic relief—in the form of that had been idled for conservation. so they could produce wheat for the grasshopper sparrow declined across the environmental groups, spurred by the was overseeing 147 demonstration proj- financial aid to farmers who agreed to After the war ended, conservation con- Russians and reap the high prices caused Midwest by more than 50 percent. dismal state of habitat and water quality ects, 48 nurseries, 23 experiment sta- idle land—at a time when 40 percent of tinued to rust in the corner of the by surging demand. In 1982 alone, 3 billion tons of soil erod- on farmlands, presented Congress with a tions and more than 10,000 full-time the American population still lived on nation’s toolshed. While Congress did a “The pressure was on to maximize ed across the nation, according to the pragmatic strategy that would change employees who were responsible for farms.
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