In wide sections of the Corn Belt, a variety of broad economic and social forces is obstructing adjustment of private entrepreneurs in land use practices in accordance with the character and condition of the main natural resource, the land. Soil is rapidly deteriorating, and buildings are crumbling on so many farms that the communities are beginning to feel the impact of serious land use maladjustments through declining farm incomes, loss of population and disintegration of local organizations and institutions.

Soil conservation has ceased to be merely a problem of farm management on a few scattered individual farms; it has reached a magnitude arousing deep public concern. People are realizing more and more that there are certain institutional arrangements, such as farm tenure and the credit system, and certain other socioeconomic forces, such as traditional farming systems and exploitive attitudes toward land, which are inherently inimical to the objectives of long-time land-use adjustment and soil conservation policies.