Soil degradation started over 100 years ago with the breaking of the sod yet its long term effects were not noticed until the 1980s when drought caused large amounts of wind erosion. At that time the general farming public became aware of the true effects of soil degradation. Looking back over the history of Saskatchewan the drought of the eighties was compared to the drought of the thirties but it appeared that the lessons of the thirties had long been forgotten.
Serious erosion is readily apparent in dry years. However degradation is continually occurring under our conventionally tilled fields. Every time a field is tilled more organic matter is broken down. The problem is that the changes from year to year are minor. If you consider that a producer farms his land for an average of thirty years there is not much apparent change to the land from when he starts farming to when he stops. However the cumulative effects of over the past 100 years has been devastating to the soil. Yet because we do not farm the land for that long or live long enough to remember that far in the past we are not fully aware of what conventional farming practices are doing to the soil.
It has been well documented that over half of the original organic matter has been lost and there are an increasing number of soil tests to requiring nitrogen fertilization on summerfallow. This indicates what organic matter is left can no longer cycle out the required nutrients for an average crop. The solution lies in changing our conventional practices and adopting practices like low disturbance seeding and other conservation practices to enhance and build our soils over the long term.