OCR Text |
Show U. S. Needs Fifty Million Acres Of Good Cropland CHICAGO' The United States will have to "find" some 50 million acres of high-yielding crop land in the next 25 years if our present standard of nutrition is to keep pace with our estimated esti-mated growth in population. This statement, by J. H. Oppen-heim, Oppen-heim, president of the Farm Equipment Institute, is based on the high rate of food production produc-tion that prevailed during the war. It will not actually be necessary neces-sary to find this much new acreage, ac-reage, he explains. Crop yields will probably rise as more farms become mechanized and the use of fertilizer is increased. Further mechanization also will mean fewer Irorses and mules, so that land now needed to raise their feed can be used to produce food for the dinner table. But if we are to find the cquiv-' alcnt of 50 million acres the present pre-sent rate of soil erosion must be slowed down, Oppenhem said. Otherwise a quarter of those 50 million acres will be lost downstream down-stream in the next quarter cen-tuxy. cen-tuxy. "Every time a crop is harvested, harves-ted, every time a grazing steer chews a blade of grass, every time the wind blows or a heavy rain falls, the soil is depleted of essential plant foods," Oppen-Jieim Oppen-Jieim declared. "We have been trying to make up for three centuries' prodigal waste of our soil resources." he added. "The big job still lies ahead. The national conservation program will have to be broadened broaden-ed and intensified and made a part of our long-range agricultural agricul-tural planning." |