Here is an interesting MinnPost piece regarding the future of Buffer Strips. Thoughts?
Friday, October 26, 2018
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9 comments:
I listened to the Gist from Slate podcast that was mentioned in one of the comments...about Iowa’s buffer fight. The science was clear on the benefit of native prairie buffer strips, but the usual suspects (Monsanto) helped kill the lawsuit.
Moose
I am not sure why Monsanto would care about buffer strips... Unless the law suit tried to get money from them...
The silly thing about 50 foot buffer strips vs 16.5 foot buffer strips is that mostly it is the country drainage ditches that have a need for buffer strips in the first place.
- Rarely do farmers farms next to natural water ways because the ground is pretty sloped in that area after centuries of the creek moving around and digging it's way down. (ie natural erosion)
- The edges of the county ditches are almost always higher than the field, this is to prevent water rushing over the edge and eroding it. Remember: when they dug the ditch they did not haul away the dirt... They just piled it on the edges to create the higher edges.
Most of the water flows into the ditches via field drainage tile with no above ground inlet, so the water is filtered by 2 to 3 feet of soil.
To me the big changes that would help would be to actually enforce the 16.5 foot berm rule that was in place and to regulate the use of tile inlets. However please remember that no good farmer wants their fertile top soil leaving the field...
These are some intersting search results
This study has interesting photos
Listen to the podcast or read the Pulitzer winning editorial series from the Storm Lake newspaper. Educate yourself instead of making assumptions.
Moose
You talking about this?
Look up Art Cullen.
Moose
Art Cullen Search I'll read some later. Helping someone move today.
Some of what he says rings true, some makes no sense.
I mean corn and bean yields just keep going up decade after decade. That is why most farmers are still in business. It sure isn't the commodity prices. :-)
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