Conserving soil for America's future

AFTER two years of hard work, we finally have a farm bill that will begin to rebuild American agriculture from the ground up. The Food Security Act of 1985 will move agriculture toward a market-based economy, and it will do so while preserving our most precious resource: the soil. No previous farm bill has been as strong or as comprehensive on soil conservation. No previous farm bill has asked so much of farmers in terms of protecting the land. The conservation measures of this legislation will help U.S agriculture get tough with soil erosion—an insidious problem with a staggering pricetag. On the farm, it causes long-term productivity losses. Among its many offfarm damages, soil erosion reduces water quality and damages wildlife habitat. Surplus commodities are costly, too. When these are harvested from highly erodible soils, the U.S. farm economy is threatened with a double-edged sword: the loss of soil and the weight of extra demands on already burdened commodity programs. We believe that the conservation provisions of this new law will put America's food and fiber system on solid footing once again, conserving our eroding soils for the years to come by …