Natural Resources Get a Checkup

Kansas’ cropland is in better condition than it was nearly 20 years ago, but there is a lot less of it, according to information released by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The information comes from a five-year checkup conducted by NRCS’s National Resources Inventory (NRI) which assesses the use, treatment, conditions, and trends of natural resources on nonfederal rural lands. These are the lands on which we grow crops, raise livestock, enjoy wildlife, and hunt and fish. In Kansas, they make up over 90 percent of the land in the state, or 51,624,500 acres.

However, according to USDA sources, conservation challenges are mounting and intensifying more quickly than we are meeting them. The troubling trends encompass several issues, soil erosion and urban sprawl. For the entire U.S., the average annual rate of land converted to developed land was 1.4 million acres a year, from 1982 to 1992. This jumped to 2.2 million acres in the period 1992 to 1997. Kansas is no exception. The data shows farm acres converted to development have increased dramatically. The number of acres of agricultural land converted to urban/rural development increased significantly from 1982 to 1997. Urban and rural development acres (including rural transportation) were up from approximately 1,719,000 acres in 1982 to more than 1,900,000 acres in 1997, an increase of almost 4 percent.

The NRI data also shows that cropland in Kansas has declined by more than 2.6 million acres from 1982 levels. With the decrease in total cropland, adequate protection of this resource becomes vital in maintaining sustainable agriculture.

More than 100,000 acres of cropland were permanently lost to urban development between 1982 and 1997. Altogether, rural land area is down by more than 2.6 million acres in the state.

The NRI also notes the decline of sheet and rill erosion in the state. This is a testament to the land users of Kansas who have continued to adopt various forms of conservation tillage to maintain higher residue levels to protect their cropland during the critical erosion periods. Controlling sheet and rill erosion not only sustains the long-term productivity of the land, but also reduces the amount of soil, pesticides, fertilizer, and other pollutants that move into our Nation’s waters.

“Kansas farmers have made tremendous progress in applying conservation practices to reduce erosion and protect water quality,” says Tomas Dominguez, NRCS State Conservationist, Salina. More than three-fourth’s of the state’s cropland is adequately protected from excessive erosion according to the 1997 NRI. Compared to 1982, erosion on cropland dropped from an average of 2.6 tons per acre each year to 1.4 tons per acre per year. However, a lot of work still needs to be done in reducing erosion in Kansas. Over three million acres of Kansas’ cropland continues to erode by water and wind erosion at unacceptable rates: approximately 1.9 million acres from water and 1.7 million acres from wind.

NRCS soil conservationists will be challenged in the future to help producers to apply new residue management technology and assist new land users with their residue management plans. Even with the positive strides made by Kansas's farmers to reduce erosion, Dominguez emphasizes that with the decrease in total cropland acres, adequate protection of this resource is vital to maintaining sustainable agriculture in the state.

For more information about the natural resource inventory in your county, please contact your local Natural Resources Conservation Service or conservation district office located at your local county USDA Service Center.

For more information about the NRI and NRCS, visit the Kansas NRCS web site at www.ks.nrcs.usda.gov.

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Last Modified: 09/09/2008