Corn used for ethanol production covered 11 million on acres in 2005, and now covers 23 million acres. To meet the 15 billion gallon mandate passed by the house in June, we will need about 36 million acres of corn. Corn is being planted in lieu of crops like soybeans, and in place of grasslands. Crop rotation is diminishing as corn-on-corn becomes the norm, and water quality could suffer due to increased fertilizer runoff. Farmer participation in the Conservation Reserve Program, a federal program that retires marginal farm land from agricultural production, is diminishing. All of this is not good news for the Henslow’s sparrow, whose recovery is dependent on the presence of perennial grasslands created by the CRP.
In creating solutions, shouldn’t we avoid creating more and new problems?
