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Planning could lessen impact of urban sprawl

Pick any state and you are likely to find examples of urban sprawl, where farmland is being converted into subdivisions and industry.

And those examples are not just found around large metropolitan areas such as Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis and Des Moines. Ag land is disappearing around other growing cities throughout the Midwest.

A report written in 2022 from the American Farmland Trust suggests this trend is likely to continue. In the report, the organization said from 2001 to 2016, the U.S. lost or compromised 2,000 acres of farmland every day. If the trend continues, another 18.4 million acres will be converted between 2016 and 2040. That is roughly the size of the state of South Carolina.

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Western tansymustard in a short grass prairie patch.

Video: Western tansymustard in a short grass prairie patch.

Western Tansymustard is an annual plant that penetrates compact soil and softens it for grass to grow more easily after it seeds and decomposes to produce beneficial soil organisms eating the rotten stems of weeds from within.