| Chapter 1: | Farm Bills, Interest Groups, and Policy Change |
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This trend holds true in most other regions of the country as well—the South, for example, is dominated by cotton, rice, and peanut production (USDA, 2009).
Though producing only one crop often leads to a more uniform product and requires fewer pieces of machinery, less diverse skills and knowledge, and simpler systems for record-keeping, growing only one crop is risky in the same way that investing one's entire savings in one stock is risky. If a farmer plants only corn, and if the crop fails because of weather or pest problems, s/he could end up with no alternative remaining source of income (Hesse, 2005). And the more corn planted, the more susceptible the crop becomes to pest and disease threats, as fields no longer attract the same diversity of insects as they had when planted with many different crops (Pennsylvania State University, 2007).
In addition, environmental groups argue, when one kind of crop is planted year after year on the same piece of land, the nutrients needed to produce that crop are constantly removed from the soil (Killpack & Buchholz, 2006). Although farmers apply chemical fertilizers and pesticides to replenish soil nutrients and kill pests, those inputs not used quickly enough by a plant easily leach into nearby water bodies, contaminating groundwater, lakes, and rivers, polluting drinking water, and increasing exposure to nitrate toxicity in infants (Environmental Working Group, 1996; Foltz et al., 1993; Killpack & Buchholz, 2006). Pesticide use has been linked to health problems among agricultural workers and their families (University of California, Berkeley 2010). Excess nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers feed aquatic plant life, causing algal blooms and large fish-kill zones where the Mississippi River drains into the Gulf of Mexico (Green Lands Blue Waters, 2004; Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, 2000). Finally, environmental groups argue that planting crops in monoculture or biculture leaves soil particularly vulnerable to erosion by wind or water, especially during the (often)8 months of the year when soil is left bare (Green Lands Blue Waters, 2004; USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, 2003).
Environmental groups involved in farm bill debates thus focus on the impacts of farming on natural resources, ecological health, forest