Sacrifice one green for another

In a recent study that was done by Penn State University, it was shown that certain types of straw residue that is spread out over corn crops reduced the level of dangerous nitrates that leeched into main waterways. The downside of this is, that the actual crop of the corn that grew was also reduced by as much as 16%.
So what does this mean? In my opinion, it seems that in order to help out the environment, sometimes it means that we might have to take a loss in profit in order to do what is right.

In an age where we are trying to move into a more earth friendly direction in all aspects of our daily lives, just recycling more and getting fluorescent light bulbs might not be enough. Most of the time when we think of going green, it is usually regarding power consumption, and utilizing reusable materials. I think that we all need to broaden that view onto a larger scale. Is it possible that with studies like this that are beginning to emerge, we can start trying to push our government to create subsidies for agricultural farmers that take a loss of profit and crop yield in order to help reduce the leakage of dangerous chemicals into our waterways due to soil erosion?

This and many more useful articles found at found @ The American Society of Agronomy
For more information, visit www.agronomy.org