1 Introduction The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains region devastated by drought in 1930’s when America was going through the Great Depression. The 150,000 square-mile area included Oklahoma, Texas and sections of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. This area had little rainfall, light soil, and high winds, a destructive combination. When the drought struck from 1934 to 1937, the soil lacked a strong root system of grass as an anchor, so the winds easily picked up the loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called “black blizzards.” The dust storms wreaked havoc, choking cattle and pasture lands. The black blizzards drove 60 percent of the population from the region. Ranchers and farmers in the nineteenth and early …show more content…
The value of farmland declined by 28% per-acre in high-erosion areas and 17% in mild erosion areas. Even long term, the agricultural value of the land failed to recover to pre-Dust Bowl levels. In highly eroded areas, less than 25% of the original agricultural losses were recovered. The economy adjusted through large population declines in more-eroded counties, both during the 1930s and through the 1950s. In response to so many farmers going bankrupt, the federal government formed a Drought Relief Service to coordinate relief activities. The Drought Relief Service bought cattle in counties which were designated emergency areas, for $14 to $20 a head. Although it was difficult for farmers to give up their herds, the cattle slaughter program helped many of them avoid …show more content…
The administration also began educating farmers about soil conservation and techniques to prevent erosion, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, and other improved farming practices. In 1937, the federal government began encouraging farmers to adopt planting and plowing methods that conserved the soil. The government paid farmers a dollar an acre to practice the new methods of soil conservation. By 1938, the massive conservation effort had reduced the amount of blowing soil by 65%. In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of dirt and dust, the drought ended when regular rainfall finally returned to the region. The government still encouraged continuing the use of conservation methods to protect the soil and ecology of the
To begin with, the “Dust Bowl” was one of the causes of economic fallout which resulted in the Great Depression. Because the “Dust Bowl” destroyed crops which were used to sell and make profit, the government had to give up a lot of money in order to try and help the people and land affected by the “Dust Bowl”. The “Dust Bowl” refers to a time during the 1930’s where the Great Plains region was drastically devastated by drought. All of the areas (Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico) all had little to no rainfall, light soil, and high winds, which were not a very suitable combination. The drought lasted from 1934 to 1937, most of the soil during the drought lacked the better root system of grass.
The Dust Bowl occurred for many reasons, most all our fault. “Some of the reasons that the Dust Bowl occurred were over-farming, livestock overgrazing, drought and poor farming practices.” (Dust Bowl facts and summary) Because of this negative experience it now teached us to be careful and now we know what to do to prevent this.“When drought struck from 1934 to 1937, the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor.”("Dust Bowl Facts and summary") That's really bad for the farmers because then the wind can easily pick up the dirt off the
At the same time, the local agricultural economy was experiencing a deep economic depression due to the severe droughs that had occured throughout the past decade. The loss of crops cut out the average farmers'/planters' main food source as well a...
The Dust Bowl was a treacherous storm, which occurred in the 1930's, that affected the midwestern people, for example the farmers, and which taught us new technologies and methods of farming. As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land." The early thirties opened with prosperity and growth. At the time the Midwest was full of agricultural growth. The Panhandle of the Oklahoma and Texas region was marked contrast to the long soup lines of the Eastern United States.
During the Great Depression, or the “dirty thirties”, the land had changed and definitely not for the better seeing that “severe drought and high winds degraded [the] farmland” (Gale, 2008). Although it was not nature’s fault for the Dust Bowl; the “years of overproduction and poor farming techniques had stripped the land of protective topsoil and left it vulnerable” to all patterns of western weather (Gale, 2008).
Thus, in 1891 rainfall was unable to soak into the compressed soils and new grass was not able to grow in (Guido 2). Yet, the number of cattle was not reduced by the cattle ranchers even when the ecological limits were revealed (Guido 2). The drought continued and devastated the cattle industry, causing 50% – 75% of cattle to perish (Sayre 249). Heavy rains followed in 1889-90, which fell on degraded soils and caused erosion. Fire was also suppressed and caused the invasion of shrubs (Sayre 249).
The Dust Bowl was a huge cloud that swept over states in the 1930’s. The clouds were full of dirt/dust and debris. The Dust Bowl was one of the worst things to happen in American History. It was this huge drought that never had any rain for years! The worst part was that so many people died from it. The drought was so big-in fact-that the drought went from northern Texas all the way to Saskatchewan, Canada. The drought hit the states,
The Great Plains are a flat landscape of land throughout the Western United States that receives little rainfall and ample amounts of harsh sunlight. As stated in “The Dust Bowl” The poor land management of farmers was the beginning of the downfall of these plains as farmers used machine that turned over vulnerable soil that became exposed to the elements (2-3). The farmers were not educated enough to understand that the conditions of the area were not ideal for constant crops being planted in the same spot over and over.
In the 1930’s, the United States and Canadian prairies experienced almost a decade of damaging weather. Severe droughts, high temperatures, and high winds all played a role in what would become known as the Dust Bowl. However, extreme weather was not the only factor that caused the Dust Bowl. Farmers and ranchers exhibited
The Dust Bowl is completely embedded in the minds of farmers who went through the harsh, grueling effects of the dust; the people of today still face effects because the world will face a Bowl again in things do not change. It is clear to see what exactly what led up to the occurrence: bad farming habits, migration, and drought. No matter the fact that no one can change the weather, there are still things the world can do to prevent this phenomenon. Dust, whipping around the trees and into the mouths of anyone who dares fight against it. Cattle, dying in the open plains from inhalation of so much dust and debris. “The fine particles swirl around in the air during the storm. The scary thing about a dust storm is that they can spread over hundreds
“Farming techniques such as strip cropping, terracing, crop rotation, contour plowing, and cover crops were advocated.” ("About the Dust Bowl")These new techniques were advocated in order to try and prevent more dust from getting picked up by wind and starting the dust storm again. “But for years, farmers had plowed the soil too fine, and they contributed to the creation of the Dust Bowl.”(Ganzel) This was a big mistake farmers had made. This was one of the huge factors in contributing to the Dust Bowl. This has definitely changed now. “Now, many farmers are learning how to raise crops without tilling their fields at all. (Ganzel) Farmers now not tilling their fields at all is a new farming
In the 1930s, reoccurring dust storms were prevalent in the southern Great Plains of the United States due to lack of soil preservation initiatives, severe droughts, and wind erosion. The massive dust storms often times prevented residents from participating in daily outdoor activities. People were forced to wear masks to minimize swirling particles in the air from irritating their lungs, and residents hopelessly sealed their windows and doors, but even these preventative measures did not successfully eliminate dust from entering their homes. These storms were often devastating, and they would greatly damage property, crops, and livestock. Because of the harsh living conditions, residents were often forced to abandon their homes to look for better opportunities, often in the West. This period of severe dust storms and wind erosion was named the Dust Bowl. It increased awareness about the
The Dust Bowl was "the darkest moment in the twentieth-century life of the southern plains," (pg. 4) as described by Donald Worster in his book "The Dust Bowl." It was a time of drought, famine, and poverty that existed in the 1930's. It's cause, as Worster presents in a very thorough manner, was a chain of events that was perpetuated by the basic capitalistic society's "need" for expansion and consumption. Considered by some as one of the worst ecological catastrophes in the history of man, Worster argues that the Dust Bowl was created not by nature's work, but by an American culture that was working exactly the way it was planned. In essence, the Dust Bowl was the effect of a society, which deliberately set out to take all it could from the earth while giving next to nothing back.
Originally the United States implemented a plan that would adjust supply and demand by removing the amount of tillable cropland. Stated by Johnson and Clark (n.d.) by the late 1930s the newly implemented policy expanded to include conservation producers to shift from soil-depleting to soil-building crops. During this stretch World War II had started to progress causing a swing of high production to support the demand of war. After agriculture commodities surged into overdrive in the mid-1950s the United States implemented the soil bank. Considering the elevated commodity prices and overproduction of land, the idea was to deter farmers from continuing. Production once again exploded when the golden years of agriculture, enhanced in the mid-1970s. Long term land programs wouldn’t be implemented again until 1985. According to Johnson and Clark (n.d.) the Food Security Act of 1985 established the CRP. The Conservation Reserve Program transformed over several decades, especially after the re-authorization of the CRP program under the 1990 FACT
home farm. Reducing soil erosion is one of the most important practices on my home farm.