What was the Dust Bowl and what happened to farmers?
The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken Southern Plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a dry period in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region.
What was life like for farmers during the Dust Bowl?
Despite all the dust and the wind, we were putting in crops, but making no crops and barely living out of barnyard products only. We made five crop failures in five years.” Life during the Dust Bowl years was a challenge for those who remained on the Plains. They battled constantly to keep the dust out of their homes.
How did the Dust Bowl affect the environment?
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was one of the worst environmental crises to strike twentieth century North America. Severe drought and wind erosion ravaged the Great Plains for a decade. The dust and sand storms degraded soil productivity, harmed human health, and damaged air quality.
Why did farmers who did manage to grow crops during the Dust Bowl struggle to make enough money to survive?
Farmers in this region couldn’t grow crops because there wasn’t enough water. To make matters worse, great dust storms formed in the area covering everything in dust. Dust got everywhere and made life very difficult.
What did the Dust Bowl teach farmers?
They taught farmers proper farming practices to help preserve the soil. They also purchased some land to let it regenerate in order to prevent future dust storms.
What was the aftermath of the Dust Bowl?
The dust storms themselves destroyed houses and even entire towns — over 500,000 Americans became homeless due to the Dust Bowl. This desperation caused the greatest migration in U.S. history. By 1939, 3.5 million people left the Great Plains, with most of them moving westward in search of work and a place to live.
How did the Dust Bowl change farming?
Cotton farmers left fields bare over the winter months, when the winds were at their highest, and burned the plant stubble to control weeds, which further removed any anchoring vegetation.
How did farming practices change after the Dust Bowl?
The practice fell by the wayside with the rise of industrial agriculture, with farms growing only one or two crop varieties on a great many acres and forgoing traditional soil health measures in favor of intense amounts of fertilizers and pesticides to stay productive.
Why do farmers face economic difficulties?
Challenges faced by commercial farmers: * 1: farmers are encouraged to avoid producing crops that are in excess supply. * 2: the government pays farmers when certain commodity prices are low. * 3: the government buys surplus production and sells or donates it to foreign governments.