Soil conservation: A farm woman's perspective

Excerpt

FARM girls care about the soil. So do their mothers. As a nine-year-old I found that laying out a new contour on our rolling fields was a family affair. I held the tape, put stakes in the ground, and excitedly watched Dad furrow those first curving lines. Later, as a wartime “hired hand,” I gingerly set my tractor cultivators into those winding rows, hoping Dad would not notice the few chewed-up corn plants. Contoured fields were beautiful and soil-saving in the 1930s. They still are.

Farm women today remain enthusiastic about soil conservation. They have ideas about solving soil conservation problems too. But somehow farm women get pigeonholed into such activities as farm safety, meat promotion, and pigskin style shows. Worthy as those efforts are, they tend to preoccupy the volunteer's time, leaving less time to respond to concerns about what is happening to the soil.

Frankly, there has not been much encouragement for women to get involved in soil conservation. The truth is, however, farm women have begun to take much more responsibility for farm operations. But there remains a self-image problem, as well as difficulty in gaining access to …