Dust Bowl Research Paper

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The wind picks up as black clouds start forming over the horizon. No rain comes with these clouds that turn day into night, blasting sand and soil, huge sand storms hundreds of miles wide and miles high lasting anywhere from an hour to a day. There is no hiding for people in the path of these storms, only waiting for the wind to die and these droughts to cease, but the rains do not bring any relief. Instead, flash floods strip barren fields of precious minerals within the soil, leaving more dust to form larger, blacker clouds for next growing season. Land degradation is a combination of man made and natural disasters which has affected millions of people in the United States and worldwide; however, with the right regulations and incentives…show more content…
Baumhardt in his report the “Dust Bowl Era” states that “the damaging effect [from] excessive tillage contributed significantly to soil erosion throughout the Dust Bowl”, adding “soil erosion was also triggered by overgrazing and drought conditions” (190). With the land barren with no stable crops or native fauna to hold back erosion, natural winds of the area would ravage the land more. Libcap states that, “Wind erosion is a natural characteristic of the Great Plains given the strong prevailing winds and semi-arid climate of the region. It is most common in the late winter and spring when wind speed is highest”(5). With the start of the droughts in the 1930's and the effects of the Great Depression across the U.S., farmers went bankrupt. Poor crop production due to the droughts during the 1930's left much of the farms on the Great Plains barren. With no native grass or wheat crops to hold back the soil, the winds created giant dust…show more content…
According to the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) report on the “Dust Bowl”, these resources included the “establishment of government-based markets for farm goods, cash to maintain functioning farms/ranches, funding for supplies, technology and technical support to research, implement, and promote appropriate land management strategies”(The Dust Bowl). However, there were stipulations put into place to encourage the rehabilitation of the land. Libcap writes that beginning in 1938, Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) placed Clem 6 incentives on farmers, which encouraged them to maintain their cropland from erosion or face losing their funding (25). These laws might have seemed harsh at the time but evidence today shows the

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