American Experience – In the early years of the 1930s, the nation was desperately trying to recover from the shock of the Great Depression and Hugh Hammond Bennett, “the father of soil conservation,” realized that the average American’s fate was closely tied to that of Dust Bowl farmers.
Bennett began his campaign to preserve the soil by reforming farming practices with his mission being to address the problems of land depletion. “The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the nation possesses. It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted; that cannot be used up.”
Bennett was a champion of soil conservation methods, saying “In conservation farming with will find an avenue to the greatest food production the world has ever known – not only for the war, but for the peace that is to follow.”
