Describe the American Dust Bowl and the lesson learned.

Homesteaders cultivated the native prairies of the Great Plains of the United States. In this area, prairie grasses had prevented erosion. Farmers removed the grass and planted wheat and raised cattle. This damaged the soil structure. In the early 1930s, a drought exacerbated the ongoing impact of humans on soils and resulted in wind erosion of millions of tons of topsoil. Impacts of soil entrained in the atmosphere were detected as far away as New York, where black snow and rain fell. The lesson was that soil conservation had to be a priority to protect our ability to produce food in this country. The Soil Conservation Service was created.