Planning for a Sustainable Future: The Case of the North American Great Plains
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Visions for the Future, Urgency for Change

We are living too close to the edge! In the North American Great Plains, stretching from the Canadian prairies to the high plateau of northern Mexico, our lives are shaped by climate, soils, water, people, and heritage. Our future is highly dependent on natural resources and on how we interact with other species in a complex ecosystem. Our current economies are highly dependent on weather, native soil fertility, world markets, and the will of those who work the land. Such economies are sustainable only in the short term, and only with substantial investment of fossil fuels and other resources from outside the region. To practice economic stewardship, we need to live on nature's interest and not on nature's capital.

The well-being of the Great Plains isn't all that's at stake. We are a vital food-producing region for the United States, Canada, and the rest of the world, and if current trends continue, dwindling agricultural lands and increasing population are going to collide. Today the United States has about 1.8 acres of productive farmland per person. It is estimated that 1.2 acres per person are needed to support the current standard of living, and the balance is available to produce food for export. The U.S. population is increasing by 3 to 4 million per year, about half from births and half from immigration, and is projected to double by the year 2055. One million acres of land are lost each year to urbanization (highways, parking lots, industry, homes), and another one million acres are lost because of agriculture (through salinization, excessive erosion, and general decline in productivity). Simple calculations show that by the year 2055 there will be about 0.6 acres of productive land per person, about half what is needed to support our current lifestyle. Our grandchildren will be working adults by then. It is urgent that we confront and work within the population and land resource reality.

Our ability to combine economic and environmental stewardship is rooted in our sense of place, our knowledge of the land and communities that sustain us, and our understanding of the role we play in worldwide markets and the planetary ecosystem. The Great Plains have fertile soils that have fed our population and helped to feed the world, but our natural resource-based economy in this place depends on many factors far beyond our control. Most production inputs are imported - fossil fuels, pesticides, fertilizers, and farm equipment - and the only way to gain control over increasing costs is to seek systems that depend on native rather than imported resources. More than 50% of our agricultural production is exported as unprocessed feed grains, though livestock represents a value-added export. The market value of all of these products depends on weather in other parts of the world, on prices of energy and transportation, on political alliances, and on the goals of multinational corporations that control much of the export. These corporations are accountable to their shareholders, and not to any country, producer, or consumer. This fragile economic situation is similar to that faced by farmers and ranchers in most developing countries. There is a growing awareness of the need for economic stewardship, parallel to the environmental stewardship needed for soil and water.

Another defining characteristic of this place is open space, increasingly a function of farm and ranch size. Space has a big influence on community and infrastructure. With consolidation of farmlands into larger holdings and fewer people living on the land and in rural communities, there is loss of critical services that contribute to quality of life on the plains. Loss of people from rural areas leads to the exodus of medical services, increased distance to schools and shopping, and disappearance of what we know as human community. Although information technology has the potential to bring us closer in some ways, this does not offset the loss of human interaction. In our move toward an industrial agriculture, based on larger farms, higher use of external production inputs, and perceived economies of scale, we should heed the words of Wendell Berry: "Would you rather have the neighbor's farm? Or have a neighbor?"

On the positive side, the Great Plains have natural resilience. If we do not overstress our natural resources, there is opportunity for regeneration of grasslands, natural soil fertility, abundant water resources. The Sandhills region of Nebraska serves as a natural recharge area for the Ogallala aquifer, but only if we do not extract too much water from the southern reaches of this magnificent natural resource. Success stories in this region and others nearby show how bilateral concern turned into action can make a difference:

• There has been a major cleanup of the Great Lakes over the last two decades as a result of concerted efforts in Canada and the United States.
• Limited tillage with newly available planting equipment has substantially reduced primary land preparation costs and soil/residue disturbance.
• Irrigation scheduling, low-pressure sprinkler systems, surge management of row irrigation, and research on crop water needs have made water use more efficient.
• Use of late spring soil tests for available nitrogen have helped Iowa farmers reduce N applications by an average of 50 pounds per acre without sacrificing yields.

Parts of a strategy for a sustainable future in the Great Plains may include:

• Farming and ranching systems that are highly efficient in the use of soil nutrients and contemporary water and energy (as opposed to fossil water or energy), including crop rotations, efficient dryland agriculture, and integrated crop/animal systems; these systems are designed to use nature's interest rather than continuing to spend nature's capital.
• Use of soil-building crops and other sustainable agricultural practices, plus integrative design of systems that (1) work from a watershed perspective, (2) connect wildlife habitat zones from one farm to another, and (3) capture water and nutrients within that zone for use by crops and livestock.
• Design and implementation of systems that reduce the impact of human intervention (leave a smaller footprint) on the natural environment, including careful zoning of agricultural and other sector activities, minimizing atmospheric and water pollution, and generally promoting the high level of environmental quality that characterizes the region.
• Products that are diverse and (1) have maximum value-added, both on the farm and in the local community; (2) have local markets and replace some food and other products currently imported into the plains; and (3) have potential markets elsewhere, promoting economic health in agriculture and potential to reinvest in the land.
• Design of political support systems and national and international regulations that promote diversity in crops and products that (1) are appropriate to each place, (2) do not reduce the productive potential of the soil, and (3) create win-win trade situations on a global scale.
• Development of economies of scope in each place that connect rural and urban dwellers; also, educate all people about the sources and importance of food and natural resources and how people can live sustainably within the environment of that place and with minimal extraction of natural resources.
• An intensive research and demonstration effort to better understand the functioning of this fragile ecosystem, the interaction between surface and subsurface water courses, and the complex interactions among soil, water, climate, people, and other species that inhabit this place.
• Adoption of a sense of importance of cycles in nature - those of water, nutrients, and life - similar to that sense developed by First Nation peoples in their adaptation to the unique, harsh, and variable climate of this place.
• Education of non-farm and non-rural populations about the importance of food and the environment, the fragility of the ecosystem here, and the need for all people to be concerned about and involved in their food systems and ecoregions.

The future is not what it used to be! One of the most significant characteristics of the future is change, and the rate of change is accelerating. Some of the change is technological, and we can direct that change toward what is useful to humans and at the least not harmful to most other species. We can choose to put some technologies on the shelf. Other changes, such as global warming or development of a hole in the ozone, are due in large part to human population and applications of some technologies. These are more difficult to influence in the short term, but can be changed in the long term through education and international accord on their extraordinary importance to the human population.

There are multiple visions of what may be possible in the future. It is essential that we explore these visions and their implications, in terms of resources, human population, survival of other species, and health of the global ecosystem. We should select visions that are conditioned by and consistent with our values and moral code. They should be sensitive to the needs of people everywhere, not just those in the Great Plains. Inhabitants of the earth share a common future.

According to Governor Ben Nelson (Nebraska), "If we do what we've always done, we'll get what we've always gotten." Participants in Planning for a Sustainable Future were clear that business as usual is not good enough for the future. We have the information and ability to develop non-extractive food production systems, to maintain quality of soil, water, and air, and to design healthy and equitable economic systems for the future. We can design systems for today that do not constrain the options for future generations. The burning question is whether we have the will and commitment.

Symposium Planning Committee
May 1995
Donald A. Wilhite, Co-Chair
Brian O'Donnell, Co-Chair
Charles F. Francis, Lead Author

Symposium Planning Committee -

Brian Abrahamson, Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration

Derek Bjonback, Environment Canada

William Bolhofer, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Gary Evans, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Charles A. Francis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

David Grimes, Environment Canada

Ross Herrington, Environment Canada

Alice J. Jones, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Al Malinauskas, Environment Canada

Joan Masterton, Environment Canada

Lynne Mortenson, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Brian O'Donnell, Environment Canada

Steve Ragone, S. E. Ragone and Associates

Kelly Smith, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Allen Tyrchniewicz, International Institute for Sustainable Development

Donald A. Wilhite, University of Nebraska-Lincoln