Passage 4Agriculture is the number one industry in the United States and agricultural products are
Agriculture is the number one industry in the United States and agricultural products are the countrys leading export. American farmers manage to feed not only the total population of the United States, but also millions of other people throughout the rest of the world. Corn and soybean exports alone account for approximately 75 percent of the amount sold in world markets.
This productivity, however, has its price. Intensive cultivation exposes the earth to the damaging forces of nature. Every year wind and water remove tons of rich soil from the nations croplands.
Each field is covered by a limited amount of topsoil, the upper layer of earth which is richest in the nutrients and minerals necessary for growing crops. Ever since the first farmers arrived in the Midwest almost 200 years ago,cultivation and, consequently, erosion have been decreasing the supply of topsoil. In the 1830s, nearly two feet of rich, black top soil covered the Midwest. Today the average depth is only eight inches, and every decade another inch is blown or washed away. This erosion is steadily decreasing the productivity of valuable cropland. A United States Agricultural Department survey states that if erosion continues at its present rate, corn and soybean yields in the Midwest may drop as much as 30 percent over the next 50 years.
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