Surplus madness

Excerpt

THE first ten years of the export era of American agriculture have had a profound effect on this country's agricultural resources. A number of studies have established that much of the land brought into crop production since 1972 is much more vulnerable to erosion than land previously cropped. What the studies have not captured, the eye can see, in northern Missouri, in eastern Colorado, along the Mississippi Valley, and elsewhere.

Even as the intensive and often damaging land use patterns have endured—have, to a degree, become entrenched—the economic promise of the export era has soured for the American farmer. In response, Secretary of Agriculture John Block continuously vows to push for “a greater emphasis on agricultural trade,” for “a more aggressive marketing stance,” and with such avidity, that the weary might confuse it for a fresh idea, or worse still, for a good one.

For the current administration's agricultural policy is bad for the American farmer, bad for the soil, and, by conveniently overlooking the lessons of the past decade, is bad for global resource conservation. Nor will it help to alleviate the central cause of the world …