Agriculture and water quality report

I saw this new release today about the results of a recent study on the relationship between river water quality and agricultural drainage. If you don’t want to read the whole article, here is a summary: “A new study by a team of researchers at the Science Museum of Minnesota and several major universities, published online March 1 in the journal Hydrological Processes, has shown that the extensive network of ditches and underground tiling used to enhance agricultural yields has had the unintended consequence of increasing river channel erosion and sediment loads.” http://www.smm.org/media/drainage

Since there are more than a few fans of the rivers of this state, I’curious as to your thoughts on this.

I’m not saying I’m a genius, but I could have told these people that for 25 cents.

Thanks for posting though goat.

I thought it was pretty common sense too, but some people won’t believe anything unless there is paper published. I’d guess over 60-75% of Southern Minnnesota is tiled. So we’ve lost 3-4 feet of water storage across that much of the land mass. How could it possibly affect the water quality?

What about stormwater runoff from all the cities and roads dumping water much faster than before?? It all has a bering on water levels. Looks to me alot more conrete and asphalt than there was in the 40’s. And anything they publish is the absolute truth??

Lets not forget the affects of agriculture on inland lakes too. Before the water gets to the big rivers, sometimes it is dumped into lakes. Its the land of 10,000 Lakes and about 5,000 creeks, streams and rivers connecting them. I don’t remember as a kid lakes being so green. It seems like most lakes in the central, flat part of the state are green.

It might not be devastating, but it is disgusting to look at.

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What about stormwater runoff from all the cities and roads dumping water much faster than before?? It all has a bering on water levels. Looks to me alot more conrete and asphalt than there was in the 40’s. And anything they publish is the absolute truth??

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While I agree that concrete and buildings has some to do with it…..It’s hard to compare that to a Farmer that Takes a 300 acres field and tiles it in a weekend. Draining into the ditches and flowing into the local stream. I make my living off of agriculture related business but it amazes me with what these guys can do. Take a look at your favorite lake map from 50 years ago,,then look at it now. I’d bet anything there are MANY land points that are no longer there and submerged by 4 FOW. BUT HEY! They grow our food so lets give them a pass to do whatever they want. That was sarcasm and I’m laying it on pretty thick.

Here is an older article that runs along the same lines. We keep messing with the filter system nature has, the less water quality we are going to have.

Plowing the Prairie

It’s a very fine line everybody needs to walk. On one hand the farmers need to feeds millions of people every year. To do that they need to produce more using chemicals and creating more land to farm.

The land is drained and will never be returned to wetlands. I don’t know what can be done to change that. Maybe require counties to keep x amount of land wet? I don’t know how that would work.

As they say, the cow is out of the barn, now what?

I would say that this is as the saying goes a “day late and dollar short”. You can change it, all it takes is MONEY, and lots of it!!!!
Our all great and powerful government has pushed for more crop production since the 40’s(about when the study says it started) and paid to drain these wetlands.
The way the farm programs are geared now is for more and higher row crop production. Hay, alfalfa is not a conservation crop, the D9’s and scrapers are the new conservation measures. I have seen it happen, I had hay or alfalfa planted in contour strips and I was penalized for it in the farm programs. The government wanted row crops fence to fence, that is what they paid you for. If corn price drops, that is what they will pay for again.

Sad, isn’t it.

Yes, I see it out in central SD a lot now. Fields that were cattle pastures since my Dad was a boy some 50 years ago. Now they are being broken up and planted. You should see the rocking equipment they bring in. Giant Cat dump trucks, pay loaders, excavators, back hoes and bob cats. There are GIANT piles of rocks around in certain fields being sold for landscaping.

I respect each land owner’s decision to do what they want with their land. Us, we are leaving our little pin head in CRP, trees and food plots for as long as Dad and I own it. Whether we are getting paid or not.

With all the wetland draining and trees being taken down in the name of more acres for ethanol corn I wonder how long it will be before the next dust bowl. Might not be that far off.

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I would say that this is as the saying goes a “day late and dollar short”. You can change it, all it takes is MONEY, and lots of it!!!!
Our all great and powerful government has pushed for more crop production since the 40’s(about when the study says it started) and paid to drain these wetlands.
The way the farm programs are geared now is for more and higher row crop production. Hay, alfalfa is not a conservation crop, the D9’s and scrapers are the new conservation measures. I have seen it happen, I had hay or alfalfa planted in contour strips and I was penalized for it in the farm programs. The government wanted row crops fence to fence, that is what they paid you for. If corn price drops, that is what they will pay for again.

Sad, isn’t it.

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Darrell has this 100% right. Growing up in western MN, I hate to see what’s happening to the landscape out there but the farmers are doing what they can to maximize their profits based on the market and business environment.

Say what you want about corporate ethics and responible business practices, even though I wouldn’t make the same choices, I can’t blame anyone for making money legally when they can.

The farm subsidies need to change and change drastically before we see any improvements to how land is managed for both crop production and natural or environmental concerns.

Keep in mind that when you hear the DC talking heads speak about entitlement program reforms, farm subsidies is an entitlement program, too.

Last I heard ethanol consumed around 40% of the corn crop, granted much of that goes back into animal feed in the form of distillers grains but I think the impact of corn ethanol is largely underestimated. I talked to a NRCS soil scientist from the southern portion of the state last fall and he told me it was the worst year for erosion he had seen since he started in the early 70s. I worked on a conservation program from 2006-2009 helping farmers establish perennial crops like prairie grass and biomass crops. It was a tough sell then and even tougher sell now. $$ talks and the hard truth is that those crops don’t turn the profit like corn. Until we can put some $$ value to conservation on farm land, I don’t see how anything will change.