Ruined crops, salty soil: How rising seas are poisoning North Carolina's farmland

[mahatmakanejeeves]

David Fahrenthold Retweeted

“If we have another year or two like the past five, not only will I not be farming. A lot of us won’t.”

Stunning reporting and writing by @sarahkaplan48, who also reported on climate change’s toll in North Carolina during Hurricane Florence

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Of climate change’s many plagues — drought, fire, flood — this one sounds almost like something out of myth: Rising seas are sowing farmers’ fields with salt.

With stunning photos by @EamonQ

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National
Ruined crops, salty soil: How rising seas are poisoning North Carolina’s farmland



East Carolina University graduate students Trevor Burns, left, and Tyler Palochak check groundwater monitoring equipment on a farm near Engelhard, N.C., in January. (Eamon Queeney/for The Washington Post)

By Sarah Kaplan
March 1 at 7:27 PM

MIDDLETOWN, N.C. — The salty patches were small, at first — scattered spots where soybeans wouldn’t grow, where grass withered and died, exposing expanses of bare, brown earth.

But lately those barren patches have grown. On dry days, the salt precipitates out of the mud and the crystals make the soil sparkle in the sunlight. And on a damp and chilly afternoon in January, the salt makes Dawson Pugh furrow his brow in dismay.

“It’s been getting worse,” the farmer tells East Carolina University hydrologist Alex Manda, who drove out to this corner of coastal North Carolina with a group of graduate students to figure out what’s poisoning Pugh’s land — and whether anything can be done to stop it.

Of climate change’s many plagues — drought, insects, fires, floods — saltwater intrusion in particular sounds almost like a biblical curse. Rising seas, sinking earth and extreme weather are conspiring to cause salt from the ocean to contaminate aquifers and turn formerly fertile fields barren. A 2016 study in the journal Science predicted that 9 percent of the U.S. coastline is vulnerable to saltwater intrusion — a percentage likely to grow as the world continues to warm. Scientists are just beginning to assess the potential effect on agriculture, Manda said, and it’s not yet clear how much can be mitigated.
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Sarah Kaplan is a science reporter covering news from around the nation and across the universe. She previously worked overnights on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. Follow https://twitter.com/sarahkaplan48

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Thanks for sharing this, mahatmakanejeeves.

We're lucky, the farm is literally on one of the two highest points in the county. The Army Corps of Engineers came out and buried a granite marker noting the elevation. We still had a lousy bean crop this year because of the rain from the storms, even on higher ground. We do no till rotation and it's been a losing game the last few years due to storms. We just broke a yearly precipitation record.

I feel for those who have less fortunate circumstances. We are seriously considering container farming, even with our traditionally fertile soil. Others may not have the flexibility. Years of subsidies have hurt us in some ways, making us dependent on the seasonal dole. Suicides are up worldwide, in the farming community.

I recommend folks start learning how to grow their own food. Just in case. I recommend indoor tabletop gardens. The sprouts or shoots of most foods are just as nutritionally rich as the fruit. For example, squash sprouts instead of the actual squash.

Engelhard is in eastern Hyde County along U.S. Route 264, which leads northeast 46 miles (74 km) to Manteo and west 47 miles (76 km) to Belhaven.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Engelhard CDP has a total area of 3.22 square miles (8.33 km2), all of it recorded as land.[2] The community is at the head of Far Creek, a small tidal inlet of Pamlico Sound.

Looking at the map one sees Engelhard is in the tidal creek basin right on the coast, literally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engelhard,_North_Carolina

A statement from a climate science lecture on farming, I went to, sticks in my head to this day. As the scientist giving the lecture, getting seemingly frustrated with the various questions we were asking, said "All you need to know is that the dry places will get drier and the wet places, wetter. That's all you need to know."

Envision that worldwide and that's what's coming.

Thanks again for your post. ❤