The Rural Voice, 1983-01, Page 10CHARLES BALDWIN:
ONE OF NORTH AMERICA'S
ACKNOWLEDGED EXPERTS ON EROSION
by Alice Gibb
Charles Baldwin of Ridgetown, or
"Charlie" to his cohorts, doesn't fit the
image of a Biblical -style prophet. But
over the past decade, Baldwin has
become one of Canadian agriculture's
best-known prophets. His message is
simple ----farmland is a very finite re-
source, and if it's going to produce food
for future generations, we have to start
conserving that land now. While the con-
servationist may once have seemed like a
voice crying in the wilderness, now
farmers are not only listening to his soil
management message, but they're taking
action.
Dr. Baldwin, who recently celebrated
25 years as head of Ridgetown College of
Agricultural Technology's (RCAT) soil
sciences department, is one of North
America's acknowledged experts on ero-
sion.
You only have to skim his "curriculum
vitae" to realize promoting good soil
management is the controlling interest in
Charles Baldwin's life.
For example, in 1982, he spoke on
erosion control techniques at 50 exten-
sion meetings around the province, as
well as writing 25 articles on the topic for
both academic and popular publications.
Last March, Baldwin was keynote
speaker at a three-day Provincial Soils
Conference in Prince Edward Island, and
he was an invited participant in the
Canadian Federation of Agriculture's Soil
Conservation in Canada conference held
last month in Ottawa.
In his spare time, he's active in a
mind-boggling number of conservation -
related organizations and lobbying
groups, a number far too lengthy to list.
For example. he's Ontario's representa-
tive to the Expert Committee on Soil -
Management; director of the Ontario
chapter, Soil Conservation Society of
America and chairman of the Ontario
Institute of Agrologists' conservation
committee.
In recent months, he's also been
completing his second soil conservation
movie; helping OMAF staff revise the
booklet "Windbreaks on the Farm";
adding to his extensive collection of
photographs illustrating Ontario's ero-
sion problems, as well as holding down a
full teaching load. It's hardly suprising he
bemoans the fact he can't get more
involved in local community activities.
PG. 10 THE RURAL VOICE, JANUARY 1983
Ironically, the conservationist didn't
initially plan to have any direct involve-
ment with farming. He and six siblings
were raised in East Elgin County, where
his parents and grandparents "were
trying to eke out a living on a sand farm."
As the middle son. Baldwin never had
any expectations of taking over the
small, family farm.
Instead, he decided to study wildlife
management. But when he arrived at the
University of Guelph in 1952. he dis-
covered the closest thing the agricultural
college could offer was soil sciences.
Today Baldwin's concluded, since soils
are the basis of all other resources, and
since a cleaner environment means a
healthier agricultural and wildlife situa-
tion. he's achieved his first love by rather
a back door route.
In 1955. Baldwin graduated with his
B.A., and earned his master's degree the
next year. Then he was faced with the
luxury of choosing between two job
offers ---working for a flue tobacco com-
pany, or joining the Ridgetown College
staff. Baldwin says he'd worked in
enough tobacco fields as a teenager, so
he headed for Ridgetown. It's a choice
he's never regretted and he's been away
from the college for only one year
since ---to complete his doctorate at
Michigan State University in East Lan-
sing.
The trouble with interviewing Charles
Baldwin, expert on soil conservation
techniques as diverse as grassed water-
ways to rotating crops, it's hard to know
where to begin. The affable Dr. Baldwin
supplies the answer.
He's discovered before anyone's ready
to listen to factual advice "there has to be
a philosophy of soil conservation in the
mind of the individual." Once that's
present, it's time to start talking about
practical solutions to erosion problems
or "the soil conservation practices he can
fit in with his economic management
picture," Baldwin says.
When the conservationist first started
preaching about the dangers of un-
checked wind and water erosion, over a
decade ago, Baldwin was lucky if even a
handful of farmers showed up at exten-
sion meetings. But at a recent, little -
publicized program on soil compaction
held in Lambton County, the conserva-
tionist was greeted by 350 interested
farmers, a happy occurrence happening
more and more often now.
Baldwin also find it's not just older
farmers who are ready to jump on the
conservation band wagon. In fact, "we
have an excellent balance of new farmers
and those farming many years" adopting
soil management programs.
"We're hitting a pretty vital cord with
most of the farmers despite their age
bracket. income bracket or farm size," he
adds.
Older farmers are real allies, because
they've already lived with crop rotation
programs, smaller equipment and the
pre -nitrogen fertilizer era. But younger
farmers, once they've studied available
research data. are also implementing
erosion controls in their operations.
The misuse of the seven per cent of
Canada's land that's suitable for farming
accelerated dangerously following World
War II. Cheap nitrogen fertilizers meant
farmers no longer had to rotate grain
crops with legumes. They also didn't
need livestock to supply manure, and
many switched to strictly cash crop
operations. Damage to the soil intensi-
fied further with monoculture practices
of growing one crop, usually corn,
continuously, year after year.
Or as Baldwin says succinctly, "We
were gung-ho with crop production, and
forgot about soil management." Then in
the 1970s, farmers came face-to-face
with the result of the change in farming
practices.
One of those results was "we started to
see the grey knolls appearing where the
soil was washed away," Baldwin recalls.
Gullies formed at the mouths of streams
and ditches; windstorms started carrying
away irreplaceable topsoil in Baldwin's
so-called "snoil" storms.
Farmers listen now when Baldwin tells
them they can't afford to be like the
racehorse owner who said he'd attend to
his ailing horse as soon as the steed had
$100,000 in winnings. The conserva-
tionist emphasizes farmers can't wait
until crop prices increase before taking
action ----"soil management should be in
the vanguard of any crop production
system."
Baldwin no longer promotes soil
conservation on the basis of its benefits
to future generations, but tackles it from
the completely practical standpoint of
short-term returns. Erosion controls are
advocated only if "they are cost-bene-