How far is soil conservation successful?

Question

How far is soil conservation successful?

Answer 1

Maybe it depends what area's soil conservation you wish to learn about, and what aspects of soil conservation are of interest.  I think if you search on soil conservation with a few keywords such as the location and maybe soil conservation issues, you can find more specific answers to your question.  Some governments have soil conservation bodies working on this, and there are different soil conservation issues and management methods too.  Good luck.

Answer 2

Starting during the "Dust Bowl" era of the 1930, the U.S. started many efforts toward soil conservation.  To combat wind erosion, shelter belts (rows of trees) were planted and nurtured on farmsteads throughout the mid-west.  A lot of research was done on what crops to plant and how to manage the crops to keep wind and water erosion to a minimum.  Crop rotation regimes were recommended to keep soil organic matter from being depleted.  In the last 30 years, no-till cultivation methods were developed to reduce soil disturbance.  There is a lot more to this story than I can tell here, you can read for yourself about soil conservation methods

In general, soil conservation efforts have been quite successful when they have been used.  Farmers know what to do to protect soil resources, but they may not do all the things possible because of economics (meaning short-term profits beat out long-term conservation).  And there are the people who overgraze leased federal or state land who may lack the economic incentive to conserve the soil.  Finally, there are people developing land who also have short-term economic interests trumping the need for soil conservation.  

So, all in all, I think you could say that soil conservation is *moderately* successful, but there is much more that could be done.