A survey of long-term trends in population, farm income, and crop production in the agricultural Great Plains concludes that threats to society and the environment are counterbalanced by “surprising stability” and the potential for short- and medium-term sustainability.
The survey, published in the October 2007 issue of BioScience, finds that technological advances, such as improved crop varieties, irrigation, and fertilizer use, have greatly increased production of major crops and allowed rural populations to remain stable over the past 50 years even as metropolitan populations have soared. Rural counties with extensive irrigation have slightly increased their populations, although less-irrigated counties, which offer fewer opportunities for farm-associated work, have decreased theirs slightly. The Great Plains’ population is nonetheless falling behind that of the country as a whole, and their proportion of people over 55 has grown rapidly.
The authors, William J. Parton and Dennis Ojima of Colorado State University and Myron P. Gutmann of the University of Michigan, note that the increases in crop productivity have had substantial environmental impacts, including loss of soil carbon and high nitrate runoff, especially in irrigated areas. Farms have become more dependent on government subsidies to meet the increased costs of agricultural inputs and fuel.
Plans to develop biofuels could benefit agricultural counties, but increased crop prices also threaten income from livestock production and could accelerate soil erosion while reducing soil carbon. Declining aquifers and increasing fuel costs represent another potentially worrisome trend, since both will add to the cost of irrigation.
BioScience is the monthly journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). BioScience publishes commentary and peer-reviewed articles covering a wide range of biological fields, with a focus on "Organisms from Molecules to the Environment." The journal has been published since 1964. AIBS is an umbrella organization for professional scientific societies and organizations that are involved with biology. It represents some 200 member societies and organizations with a combined membership of about 250,000.
The complete list of research articles in the October 2007 issue of BioScience is as follows:
Long-term Trends in Population, Farm Income, and Crop Production in the Great Plains.
William J. Parton, Myron P. Gutmann, and Dennis Ojima
Evolutionary Perspectives on Seed Consumption and Dispersal by Fishes.
Sandra Bibiana Correa, Kirk O. Winemiller, Hernán López-Fernández, and Mauro Galetti
A Framework for Understanding Conservation Development and Its Ecological Implications.
Jeffrey C. Milder
Applying Ecological Risk Assessment to Environmental Accidents: Harlequin Ducks and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
John A. Wiens
Dualism, Science, and Statistics.
Fred Singer
Journal
BioScience