Roughly 2.1 million acres of grasslands in the Great Plains were converted to cropland in 2018, equal to the loss of four footballs fields of land per minute, said the World Wildlife Fund on Wednesday. At the same time, the Plowprint Report said a nearly equal amount of land was returned to perennial cover such as pastures or grassland restoration, “an encouraging trend” but not a replacement for intact grasslands.
“Restoration projects are our best tool for repairing disturbed grasslands but there is no real substitute for landowners, the private sector, and government working together to keep healthy grasslands from falling under the plow,” said Martha Kauffman, head of WWF’s Northern Great Plains program.
The WWF says intact grasslands are valuable for their diversity of plants and animal life. “Intact prairies with a high number of native species maintain nutrient cycles, soil fertility and generally provide a higher degree of ecosystem services than tilled ground,” said the report.
Half as much grassland is being turned into cropland at present than during the commodity boom that drove wheat, corn and soybean prices to record levels. In 2014, as the boom collapsed, 4.45 million acres of grasslands were converted. Conversions dropped to 2.9 million acres in 2015 and trended downward since then. The Great Plains stretch from the Rio Grande valley in Texas northward across the United States into Canada’s prairie provinces.
The Plowprint Report is available here.