Why Do We Need to Protect the Soil?

Each year, tons of topsoil leave the land and end up in our streams, rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. As people cleared the land, paved roads and built homes, our waterways lost much of the natural protection that grasses, wetlands and forests provide against rainwater runoff and soil erosion. When the rains come, runoff carries topsoil, fertilizers, pesticides, oils and other pollutants into the Bay system. Once in our waterways, these contaminants cloud the water, fill in stream channels, and harm fish and underwater plants.

Farmers use conservation measures called best management practices—BMPs for short—to keep the topsoil on their crop fields where it is needed to produce food and out of waterways where it becomes a pollutant. They know that once the topsoil is lost, it is lost for good. Soil scientists estimate that it takes nature hundreds of years to make just one inch of topsoil.

There are many ways farmers work to protect the soil from erosion.

• After the summer harvest, many farmers plant cover crops. The roots of these small plants help to hold the soil in place during winter when erosion is most severe.

• Most Maryland farmers are leaving the stalks and leaves of harvested crops on their fields after harvest to act as a natural mulch to improve the soil and prevent erosion.

• Farmers also use conservation measures such as grassed waterways, streamside buffers of trees and grasses and hillside terraces to help hold the soil in place.

For more tips on how to prevent soil erosion and measures homeowners can take to protect local streams and the Bay, call or visit the Maryland Department of Agriculture at 410-841-5863 or visit their website at:  www.mda.state.md.us/resource_conservation/environmental_education.

- Louise Lawrence
Executive Director
State Soil Conservation Committee