The United States Department of Agriculture dedicates a wealth of resources and time toward combating soil erosion worldwide. This makes sense! Agriculture relies 100% on having an abundance of healthy soil to work with. Soil quality is of such great importance to the USDA that it has a dedicated Soil Quality Institute within its Natural Resources Conservation Services.
One of the most devastating effects of soil erosion is the damage done to agricultural lands worldwide.
The USDA's Soil Quality Institute (cite later http://soils.usda.gov/sqi/) published a report on "The Effects of Soil Erosion on Soil Productivity and Soil Quality".
To illustrate the devastating magnitude of soil erosion effects, the USDA asserts that "Erosion-caused losses of productivity on cropland and pastureland in the United States approach $27 billion with an additional $17 billion for off-site environmental costs (1). Worldwide costs for erosion-caused losses and environmental off-site damages are estimated at $400 billion per year (1)."
The figures below illustrate the relative loss in crop yields to severely eroded and slightly eroded soils:
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Graphics made by Me using data from USDA Soil Quality Institute's Report on Soil Quality and Agronomy  |
Not only is their a large amount of crop yield loss due to slightly eroded soils in both studies, but a significant increase in crop yield loss occurs when soils become severely eroded as well.
(2) United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Quality Institute, Soil Quality-Agronomy Technical Note
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