family teaching: #3 stewardship

 

GOD condemns man's wrongful use:
idling good land, then irrigating for greed.

 
Deut   
 11

26 Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse:
27 The blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your GOD which I command you today;
28 And the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your GOD, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.
  

Rom   
  1

18 For the wrath of GOD is revealed from heaven   against   all   ungodliness   and unrighteousness of men.

Rom   
  2

5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of GOD,
6 Who will render to each one according to his deeds:
8 But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness - indignation and wrath,
9 Tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil.

 
Salt of the earth is no friend to farmland
In California, irrigation's blessing has become curse
 

   FRESNO, Calif. - A powdery, white coating resembling a light dusting of snow blankets the farms in broad regions of the agricultural empire called the San Joaquin Valley.
   The substance is salt, and it is killing fertile fields in this region that produces most of the nation's produce.
   Irrigation, which turned the desert into   farms   of   unparalleled productivity, is leaving parts of it to wither as the salts deposited by imported water accumulate in the soil.
   For the first time in California history,   farm   land   is   to   be permanently retired from production in the next few months because it is so saline. Seen by some as a last resort akin to surrendering to the enemy, the voluntary land-retirement program is so sensitive an issue that many farmers will not speak publicly about it.
   The federal Bureau of Reclamation aims to retire 12,000 acres of valley farms this year, the first step in a

plan to gradually set aside tens of thousands of acres for a wildlife refuge.
   Mayo Ryan, who is negotiating to sell 640 acres to the bureau, has watched his farm's productivity wane, and with it, his family's future. "I could see what was happening to the land," a resigned Ryan said. "I have two sons farming with me now, and they wouldn't have any future on that land."
   Throughout much of the West, the waters and the land are salty. River
water picks up salt from land that has it as part of a geologic legacy. Long ago, portions of these desert flatlands lay beneath a vast sea, and when irrigation brings this water to salt-laden   fields,   the   liquid evaporates or is sucked up by plants, leaving   behind   even   more concen-salts. It is a cycle that begins anew each time a crop is irrigated.
   One example underscores the vast amount of salt involved. The water used in a single irrigation season on the west side of the San Joaquin

Valley deposits 1.2 tons of salts on every acre of farmland, according to the Water Education Foundation, a Sacramento-based organization that studies Western water issues.
   Because science has given farmers ways to manage the worst effects for long periods, salinity is seldom treated as a crisis. Moreover, though a state agency once classified salinity as California's most serious natural resource problem, the issue tends to be overshadowed by other more immediate concerns such as water shortages.
   Certain soil characteristics make the valley's western side particularly susceptible to salt buildup, but the problem is global. In the United States the productivity of nearly a third of the nation's irrigated farmland has been eroded by salinity.
   Irrigated cropland is the most productive in the U.S. Though they represent 15 percent of the nation's farmland, irrigated fields generate 40 percent of the revenue from crops sold. A  1   percent   decrease   in

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productivity of California's irrigated farms would result in a loss of $167 million,   according   to   federal estimates.
   The most severely affected areas are irrigated regions of the West. In the Mid west by contrast, irrigation relies on less saline water, and even irrigated fields receive enough rain to reduce the salt concentrations.
   Worldwide, the acreage that is deteriorating is roughly equivalent to the amount of new acreage being irrigated each year, according to the Worldwatch Institute, a non-profit research organization in Washington, D.C.
   Mayo Ryan's fields are among some 4 million acres in California, nearly half of the amount of the state's irrigated farm acreage, estimated to suffer from salt buildup.
   When he tested water draining from his fields years ago, it was 10 times saltier than the ocean. The production of the land fell as the salinity rose; fields that used to produce 21/2 bales of hay per acre now average 1 3/4 bales.
   The cure for the buildup is to flush away the salts and other trace elements so they do not accumulate in dangerous levels. But that requires water, lots of it, in a place where supplies are scarce. Moreover, it requires a place to put the wastes, and in the San Joaquin Valley, a drain   to   dispose   of   farms'

wastewater is literally a pipe dream.
   State and federal governments spent billions of dollars planning and building the vast water-supply network that made the valley into an agricultural empire. However, the final portion of the system, a drain to the Pacific Ocean to dispose of the salts, was never built first because the state's farmers refused to pay for it and later because of environmental concerns about dumping untreated farm wastewater into waterways.
   All this has been the grist for bitter disputes, some of them still going on in courtrooms, among farmers, government and environmentalists. Many   farmers  here   hold  the government responsible for their ruined lands and their tainted reputations as the villains behind the environmental disaster.
   Government has spent millions studying and advising farmers about how   to   best   manage   salinity problems, and how to serve the competing interests of agriculture and the environment that are difficult, if not impossible, to satisfy simultaneously. Environmentalists say farmers must come to terms with the notion that salt and selenium, an element that can be deadly to wildlife, are pollutants produced by agriculture.
   Land retirement is not an option to John Diener, a 46-year-old farmer who has spent seven years trans-

forming his 600 acres of family farms into an experimental system designed to keep the salt problem at bay.
   "I  look  at  it  as  a  matter  of stewardship of the land," Diener said.
   The farm is arranged so that wastewater from one plot can be used in another to water crops that tolerate increasingly high levels of salt and selenium. The fields that take on the most salt and selenium grow eucalyptus trees that can be used for paper; shrubs and grass that may be used for animal feed; and salicornia, a plant described as poor man's asparagus that is a popular salad item abroad - though even Diener, an enthusiast for the experiment, concedes, "I don't know how those people in Europe can eat it."
   The final, inevitable crops, though, are salt and selenium, coming from an evaporation pond, girded with plastic to protect the soil and armed with butane "canons" that can emit enough noise to keep birds form settling in on the pond.
   Terry Young, senior consulting scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, says this is the problem that must be addressed if irrigated   agriculture   is   to   be sustained in the region.
   "The only really long-term solution is to create a market for the salt and the selenium," she said.