Agriculture: the original environmentalists

The so-called Green Movement loves to blast farmers for pouring chemicals on the soil to raise crops, and destroying both the soil and the grounwater. They point out that sheep and cattle destroy the grass by eating it and walking on it, and pollute the water by relieving themselves on the streambank.

Such wild charges, constantly on display in environementalist literature and videos, and testified to at any congressional or local public hearing, fly in the face of common sense.

Why would those who make their living off the soil, do anything to endanger or weaken their livelihood?

As pointed out in an earlier post, grazing livestock is what keeps the range healthy and alive. The grass is just like your lawn: you have to harvest the grass for it to grow. The waste products from livestock deposited on the ground are then trampled down into the roots by their hooves. This is subtle cultivating of the soil, allows moisture and nutrients to reach the roots of the grass and grow the range. Professional ranchers, who raise livestock year in and year out, have no desire to destroy the range they make their living from.

Professional farmers are the same way. They have to use the same soil year in and year out, so must keep it healthy. They rotate crops and replenish the nutrients so they can stay in business.

The horror stories of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s were because speculators took the livestock off the range, plowing up land for farming that never should have been plowed, and upon discovering that, left it bare to blow. These were not professional farmers and livestockmen--they were fast buck artists, who then moved on to the next get rich quick scheme.

It was the professional ranchers who came back in, seeded the blowing soil, and eventually brought back livestock to nurture the range and keep it healthy.

The next environmentalist screed you hear or read, about getting all the agriculture off the land, is a greedy desire to use the land for their own recreational purposes. The nation's food supply be damned!