Word: topsoil
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...pesticides and fertilizers. U.S. farmers are among the most productive in the world, but their techniques are harming taxpayers and the environment. Chemical runoff is polluting groundwater. At the same time, rich Government subsidies that encourage farmers to devote too much land to a single crop have contributed to topsoil erosion. American agricultural policy should be changed to support "environmentally benign" farming methods, declared a study published last week by the National Academy of Sciences. The report urged the Government to encourage farmers to adopt such techniques as crop rotation and mechanized weeding, which the study found...
Experience has shown the Third World that destruction of forests can have disastrous consequences. Forests are vital watersheds that absorb excess moisture and anchor topsoil. Deforestation contributed to the recent droughts in Africa and the devastating mud slides in Rio de Janeiro last year. In Costa Rica topsoil eroded from bald hills has greatly shortened the life of an expensive hydroelectric dam. Alvaro Umana, Costa Rica's Minister of Industry, Energy and Mines, estimated that the surrounding watershed might have been protected 20 years ago for a cost of $5 million. Now the government must reforest the watershed...
...only 2% of Haiti is forested. The rape of trees began in colonial times with the export of hardwoods, used for the production of everything from dyes to ships. These days trees are the peasants' only real cash crop. A muddy brown ring surrounds Haiti's coast as the topsoil erodes and dissolves into the turquoise Caribbean, leaving behind what amounts to tropical desert. Reforestation efforts are outpaced by the country's demand for charcoal, a critical fuel in the urban areas...
...costing the nation. Economist Arlen Leholm of North Dakota State University ventures that his state alone will lose $2.7 billion in crops, lower federal farm subsidies and reduced farm spending. The U.S. Soil Conservation Service's William Fecke estimates that in Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas the precious topsoil of 750,000 acres of farm and grazing land has been blown away by the angry wind, an additional 7 million acres is damaged and 12 million more threatened. "If the wind keeps up," Fecke says, "we may see chunks of the Northern Plains blowing to New England...
...workers labored to restore the land around Chernobyl. A newspaper in Soviet Estonia reported that military reservists from that Baltic republic were being forced to participate in the Chernobyl cleanup. The men were said to be working 14-hour days washing down buildings and trees and digging up contaminated topsoil. "They are like squirrels in a running wheel," wrote Journalist Tonis Avikson. He noted that the reservists staged work stoppages when their Chernobyl tour of duty was extended from two months to six, and the "air was filled with strong words, words fueled by disappointment, indignation, despair." Despite this harsh...