Erosion: Drive to increase corn acres could damage soil

Plowing trees and native grasses on land held in conservation to plant more corn will reverse decades of work to prevent crop-related pollution, scientists say.

State researchers suggest that Iowa farmers will put 500,000 acres now in the Conservation Reserve Program back into production, as a result of the demand for corn-based ethanol and rising corn prices.
“These are historic changes that have people worried about the environmental consequences,” said Bruce Babcock, director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University. “We will have more soil erosion, more chemical runoff and less habitat. … There is no free lunch.”

From 1985 to 1993, the CRP program was credited with saving 694 million tons of soil per year nationwide.

In fact, 20 pounds of soil washes away for every gallon of ethanol made, according to Duane Sand, a consultant to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit conservation and land-preservation group. His soil-loss figure is based on erosion data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Inventory, and industry data on corn yields and ethanol production per bushel.

Des Moines Register