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To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (89372)	10/28/2008 9:28:48 AM
From: Bill on the Hill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116555

i have heard the farmers caused the dust bowl. but not the drought. overfarming and tilling hundreds of miles of dirt all at once left topsoils exposed to the drying winds. the results was dust storms common on deserts but not usually found on plains covered with plants. result? farmer subsidies and setbacks. it could happen again but with no till farming methods we have learned from our mistake. hopefully.

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (89372)	10/28/2008 11:03:39 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

The global drought associated with the Dust Bowl in America lasted from 1922 to 1932. This paper documents the drought in China. itpcas.ac.cn The drought revealed regions which do not have consistent viability for agriculture. The effects were also devastating in Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina. As in the U.S., in these nations farmers had taken on large debts to expand production into marginal areas to sell into the high prices cause by the demand created by World War I. One of the reasons some of these regions had not been previously farmed was due to inconsistent rainfall. By 1920, the recovery from the end of the war in 1918 resulted in the prices collapsing under the new increased supply to prices far below pre-war levels. At this point farmers who had used debt to expand didn't stand a chance. Then the drought began to hit two years later. The continuing drought was an ironic savior to the few farmers who were not leveraged as the drought restricted supply and forced prices back toward pre-war levels. These non-leveraged farmers also tended to be those who were not farming in marginal regions, where less rainfall was still sufficient rainfall. In these more sustainable areas, there were not vast tracts of previously untilled land which could quickly be put into production, hence no new debt associated with WW-I. From a historical perspective, a far more serious 190 year drought occurred in the American midwest between 1210 and 1400. Had this occurred during a more modern period it would have ended agriculture in this region. The drought is known, but the causes are not, so there is no reason to believe a drought of this magnitude and duration cannot reoccur. The lesson is the danger of farming in nonsustainable regions. A devastating drought in a desert is hardly noticed, while less than normal rainfall in a farming area with more than enough rainfall also passes by without much notice. From this perspective, mich of the American midwest may not be a sustainable region for agriculture. .