I've talked with several soil scientists that are concerned that we may have another dust bowl. Odds are we are going to see more and more severe droughts, and our standard corn and wheat farming practices leave the soil in a wind susceptible condition during the wrong times of the year. We just don't put enough organic matter back into the soil each rotation, so we need to fertilize to offset the nutrient loss, and we end up with terrible sand-like soil that can blow away and take all the nutrients with it.
IIRC, this was the issue that Salish Blue was engineered to address. I know about double cropping, but I fear that doubling down on our current practices for short-term gain might put us in a worse place 10+ years down the road.
On a separate note, we really need to stop subsidizing corn production for fuel. 40% of our annual yields goes to ethanol.
> On a separate note, we really need to stop subsidizing corn production for fuel. 40% of our annual yields goes to ethanol.
I agree. Agriculture subsidies are a big problem for all the other countries, it's like dumping.
Anyway, ethanol from corn is not a bad idea. Imagine the corn fields like a giant carbon capture facility. The carbon is not captured, but it's more efficient than digging a hole to extract oil to produce energy and then using more energy to store carbon in another hole.
