How can we prevent the dust bowl from happening again?
Other helpful techniques include planting more drought-resistant strains of corn and wheat; leaving crop residue on the fields to cover the soil; and planting trees to break the wind. Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media. Photo: Dust bowl photo from the 1930s (source: Wikipedia).
Where did the people from the Dust Bowl move to?
In the 1930s, farmers from the Midwestern Dust Bowl states, especially Oklahoma and Arkansas, began to move to California; 250,000 arrived by 1940, including a third who moved into the San Joaquin Valley, which had a 1930 population of 540,000. During the 1930s, some 2.5 million people left the Plains states.
What were the causes and effects of the Dust Bowl?
The massive dust storms caused farmers to lose their livelihoods and their homes. Deflation from the Depression aggravated the plight of Dust Bowl farmers. Prices for the crops they could grow fell below subsistence levels. In 1932, the federal government sent aid to the drought-affected states.
What happened to Okies in California?
Many years ago, the weather in Oklahoma went haywire, the rain stopped, dust storms blew away the top soil, crops failed, farmers couldn’t pay their mortgages, and Okies fled to the promised land of California in a migration that has been compared to the biblical story of Exodus.
What were the leading causes of the Dust Bowl?
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon.
What is the significance of the Dust Bowl?
The Dust Bowl intensified the crushing economic impacts of the Great Depression and drove many farming families on a desperate migration in search of work and better living conditions.