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HUMAN
SURVIVAL
RETURN OF THE
y,
DUST
BOWL
FEARED·
I
n the 1930's. a black blizzard of dust
and sand swirled across the Oreal
Plains of the United States.
1t
was a
time of desiccating drought and erosio.–
nal devastation, as the American Oreát
Plains threatened to become the Oreat
American Desert. Wind·blown topsoil
from Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and
North and South Dakota settled in
Washington. D.C., and even on ships in
the Atlantic.
,
The climate evencually changed and
erosion greaúy diminisbed, but those
who lived through the excruciating Dust
Bowl days of the "Dirty Thirties" have
the biting sand storms of that era etched
permanently in their memories.
In the wintel'S of 1954 and
1955,
heavy wind and drought again ravaged
the Oreat Plains, extensivcly damaging
crops, but not to the devastating degree
of two decades earlier.
Now, in the mid-seveoties a long, dry
spell is once more setting the stage for
what could become the worst drought
and wind erosion in decades. Unless
rain or snow comes in the next few
MARCH 1976
.weeks, beavy soil erosion could
IUU
large
amounts of lhe nation's red winter'
wbeat crop, which already has been
stunted by dry weather.
Rainfall patterns in the Great Plains
over the Jast
85
years revear a tendJ'ncy
toward dry weather about every 20
years. The driest years on record
wer~
1936 and 1956, and this indicates that
1976 might also be a drought year.
Can anything be done to ameliorate
the impact of drought? Back in 1934,
Americans launched the largest project
ever to modify the impact of climate and
agricultura! conditions in the U.S. The
operation, known as tbe Prairie States
Forestry Project, involved the planting
of some 222 million trees and shrubs,
designed to hold the blowing topsoil and
switling sand of the dust bowl. These
"sbellerbelts" .were planted in a stag–
gcred 200-mile-wide swath stretching
1,000 miles, from the Dakotas south into
the Texas panhandle.
Today, howev.er, tbe original purpose
of the shelterbelts seems largely forgot–
ten. In fact, many are being cut down to
THE BROWNING OF
~
THE GREEN-REVOLUTION
T
he mid-!960's witnessed a mucb
ballyhooed scientific brea.k–
through in crop production
koown as the Green Revolution. Con·
sidéred a major contribution in the
battle to expand grain production in the
· food deficient countries, the Green Rev–
olution focused on tbe developme.nt aod
international dissemination of high·
yielding dwatf wheats and rices. Tbe
oew strains were highly responsivo to
fer_tilizer and promised to significantly
increase yields if properly cultivated.
When the new strains were introduced
in nations such as the Pbilippines, Mex–
ico, <:;eylon, and India, stunning in–
creases in crop yields followed. India
doubled its wbeat crop in a six-year
period - a truly incredible accomplish–
ment. Mexico, the Philippines, Pakistan,
and Turkey also had remarkable in–
creases in crop production.
The successes of the Green Revolu–
tion enabled many countries to cut back
in grain imports and to even begin ex–
porring grain. India, riding the crest of
tbe Oreen Revolution, was nearly self–
sufficient in grain by 1970. Mexico
be–
gan exporting ten perceot of its grain
crop. Tbe Philippines, thanks to thc
Oreen Revolution, stopped importing
rice and stárte¡l exporting-instead. -
Yet today,
aU
this has changed.
Beginning in 1972, crop yields not
onty levelled off but declined
22
million
metric tons, or seven percent. Output of
all grains combined feU by four percent,
whi~
was a per capita decline of six
percent due to populations' insistent
two-percent-per-year growth.
Now Mexico imports
20%
of its grain,
and the Philippines is again importing
rice on a large scale.
The problem with the Oreen Revolu–
tion is that it involves a highly complex
and sophisticated form of agrictilture
necessitating Jarge amounts of water,
fertilizer, and pesticides. For instan.ce,
four to seven
times
more water
is
re–
quired per acre to achicve the copious
crop yields that characterize the Oreen
Revolution, as opposed to traditional
agricultura! practices utilizing older
lower-yield seed varieties. Yet fresh
water is becoming increasingly scarce.
The U.N. Food and Agricultura! Orga–
nization
has
predicted that 60 nations
make more acreage available for addi–
tional crops and to make possible tbe
use of central pivot revolving irrigation
systems.
Forestry and agricultura! experts, and
even the Federal Oovernment's General
Accounting Office, are saying that such
practices are short-sighted and potenti–
ally catastropbic. They poínt out that
future droughts are a certainty, at which
time the sbelterbelt windbreaks wiJJ
again be important- ifthey stíJJ exist!
Tbe weather this spring and summer
may weU determine wbether the grow–
ing concem over the windbreak trees is
eJevated to action.
- Robert Ginskey
will probably expetience water sbort–
ages by the end of the decade even with
no further increases in the use of irriga·
tion. And most of the earth's irrigation
potential has aiready been tapped.
lrrigation also has detrimental ecolog–
icaJ aspects. Mitlions of acres in Paki–
stan, Egypt, Greece, and South America
have been transformed into · veritable
salt deserts because of excessive use of
itrigation techniqt¡es. lrrigated acres
have also become a fertile breeding
ground for parasitic diseases such
as
ma–
laria and schistosomiasis.
Moreover, the fertilizers on wbich the
Gl'een Revolution is so depende'nt are
now in very. tight supply. And what is
available is often prohibitively ex–
pensive. This is largely due to the sky–
rocketing cost of fertilizer raw materials
- chiefty natural gas - as weU as the
cost of the energy needed for fertilizer
production. Since there is no likelihood
of a retum to either cheap energy or raw
materials in the foreseeable future, the
cost of fertilizer wiU uodoubtedly con·
tinoe to soar - with grave ·implications
for the Oreen Revolution.
"Miracle Gnalns" Vulnerable
The hybtid grains of the Oreen Revo- .
lution are also hig!l},x su$C<ptible to in- .
)
sect
¡ie$15
arid planf <Jiteases::-
Th~IS
--na¡,-·-
•-r–
meant increased use of costly chemical
pesticides to protect the less hearty hy-
brids. A dangerous trend toward crop
uniformity
~as
also developed whicb has
plant geneticists visibly concemed. Th.e
Pbilippines tasted the fruits of the Green
Revolution in ·1971 when a virus disease
called tungro played bavoc with their
hybrid rice. The U.S: coro crop of 1970
was likewise decimated because of the
genetic uniformity fáctor.
The new hybrids of the Oreen
Revo–
lution are also ofien higb in quantity
produoed but lower in quality tban tra–
ditional varieties. Fat and carbohydrate
contents of the new grains rose, but pro–
tein levels dropped. Also, acres formerly
pla.nted
in
nutritious vegetables and
beans were sacrificed in the push for
higher grain yields.
The result is that the Oreen Revolu–
tion
~an
no lohger be considered a pan–
acea for a hungry world.
Only Posrponing·tbe InevitAble
Actually, even during the early years
of the Oreen Revolution, many scien–
tists including Norman Borlaug, the
originator of the dwarf wheats, cau–
tioned that the new seeds should
not
be
viewed as
a
solution to the food prob–
lem. The new seeds were simply buying
time, the experts emphasized - perh.aps
another 15 to 20 years at the most - in
which to get tbe world's burgeoning
population growth under control. About
half of that time has now passed, and
little bas been accomplisbed.
With the browning of the Green Rev–
olution and the relentless growth of the
world's population, the future prospects
for a technological tix on global famine
look grim indeed.
- Robert Ginskey
9