The Conservation Era

The 1972 deal to sell US surplus grain to the Soviet Union— and the subsequent commodity crop price spike—set off a decadelong fury of borrowing, speculation, and agricultural expansion (followed by the inevitable overproduction and price collapse). Particularly caught up in the euphoria were farmers in the Prairie Pothole Region, which spans parts of Iowa and Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, northeastern Montana, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The Pothole Region—rolling hills and grasslands pocked by wetlands—is also called North America’s duck factory, because up to 60 percent of waterfowl are hatched in this habitat.1 The region is also important for storing water, filtering water, and storing carbon in soils.