gartwatch corn production's devastating impact on native grasslands by charity isely gg right here in america is one of the world's northern great plains is as important as the plains are the north american equivalent of a rainforest they're vanishing just as quickly similar to the deforestation rates seen in the rainforests these trends "mimic the land change that contributed the dust bowl." the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous." -wendell berry the forces driving the conversion of native grasslands to plant corn and other commodity crops are not rooted in necessity to provide food security to the funding a system of food production that is neither sustainable nor requisite although corn grown for livestock feed is currently second to the demand on government subsidies to keep grain companies more than farmers and of almost $35 billion for just ten years the externalized costs of environmental pollution and human health hazards that come from cafo operations regenerative farming practices-integrating livestock with crops-offers livestock production can restore grasslands and reduce the environmental impacts caused by the separate and intensive systems of producing feed grains the possible benefits if a farmer converted just one-third of a 1,000-acre of co; reduce the farm water footprint by 280 million gallons; and generate reductions in the water footprint of roughly half a trillion gallons per year with our food choices and save our prairies!
