Aug 16, 2009
WHAT IS OBAMA GOING TO DO ABOUT KUDZU?
Since President Obama has made clear that he’s willing to spend huge amounts of other people’s money in an effort to cure everything that ails America, it’s appropriate to ask about a problem that seems to have been overlooked. I didn’t find any mention of it in his State of the Union Address, although he covered plenty of other things. I’m talking about kudzu.
Botanists call it Pueraria lobata, and it’s in the pea family, but don’t let that make you complacent. Kudzu is one of the most invasive of weeds, a pest well-known to those in warmer parts of the country where kudzu has infested an estimated 7 million acres, and kudzu has extended its range into Pennsylvania, New York. Connecticut, Oregon and Washington. Kudzu can grow a foot a day. Left alone, it can completely cover a car in a few weeks, a house in one summer, and it can cover trees up to 60 feet tall. It destroys forests by preventing trees from getting the light they need. People have used goats, poison, fire and other extreme measures in an effort to control kudzu, but it has a terrifying ability to bounce back. Kudzu seeds appear to withstand just about anything except bitter cold temperatures. Dr. James Miller, of the U.S. Forest Service, spent 18 years searching for a herbicide that would have a significant effect on kudzu, and he finally found one, but reportedly it made kudzu grow faster! In recent decades, the federal government has declared a War On Poverty, a War On Cancer and a War On Drugs. Surely it’s time for a War On Kudzu. Only government is big enough to get us out of this crisis.
President Obama has been hoping to draw some wisdom from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, but that might be a mistake in this case, because the New Deal promoted kudzu from sea to shining sea. New Dealers hailed it as “the miracle vine.” The Tennessee Valley Authority, America’s largest power-generating monopoly, imported kudzu plants from Asia and urged millions of farmers to plant it as a way of fighting soil erosion. Henry Wallace, FDR’s Secretary of Agriculture, presided over a national campaign to promote kudzu. His Soil Erosion Service had nurseries that produced some 73 million kudzu seedlings. There were farm subsidies to help those who couldn’t afford to spend their own money planting kudzu. The eager beavers in FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps planted millions and millions of kudzu seedlings. By 1945, some 500,000 acres in the southeastern United States were cultivated with kudzu. The Kudzu Club of America offered news and inspiration for some 20,000 kudzu fans. It’s easy to see why FDR must have viewed kudzu as something that could lift America’s spirits.
Unfortunately, political power can magnify the harm done by human error. It turned out the federal government might have backed the wrong horse, or the wrong vine, and kudzu did more than a little harm. Even in a crisis, though, a big government bureaucracy moves slowly. During the 1940s, the most aggressive kudzu promotion campaigns seem to have wound down. In the 1950s, the Agricultural Conservation Program removed kudzu from its list of recommended cover crops. The following decade, the Soil Conservation Service limited recommendations for planting kudzu. Then in the 1970s, the Soil Conservation Service took a drastic step, classifying kudzu as a weed.
Lately, the kudzu issue has become less clear. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture reports that when kudzu covers a building, it serves as a natural coolant and can help reduce air conditioning costs. So kudzu could turn out to be a key weapon in the War against Global Warming, provided people can hack their way through the vines and get out of their buildings. Surely, it’s worth a few billion, perhaps tens or hundreds of billions, to determine whether the miracle vine is friend or foe.
-- Jim Powell, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, author of FDR'S FOLLY, BULLY BOY, WILSON'S WAR, GREATEST EMANCIPATIONS, THE TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY and other books
Botanists call it Pueraria lobata, and it’s in the pea family, but don’t let that make you complacent. Kudzu is one of the most invasive of weeds, a pest well-known to those in warmer parts of the country where kudzu has infested an estimated 7 million acres, and kudzu has extended its range into Pennsylvania, New York. Connecticut, Oregon and Washington. Kudzu can grow a foot a day. Left alone, it can completely cover a car in a few weeks, a house in one summer, and it can cover trees up to 60 feet tall. It destroys forests by preventing trees from getting the light they need. People have used goats, poison, fire and other extreme measures in an effort to control kudzu, but it has a terrifying ability to bounce back. Kudzu seeds appear to withstand just about anything except bitter cold temperatures. Dr. James Miller, of the U.S. Forest Service, spent 18 years searching for a herbicide that would have a significant effect on kudzu, and he finally found one, but reportedly it made kudzu grow faster! In recent decades, the federal government has declared a War On Poverty, a War On Cancer and a War On Drugs. Surely it’s time for a War On Kudzu. Only government is big enough to get us out of this crisis.
President Obama has been hoping to draw some wisdom from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, but that might be a mistake in this case, because the New Deal promoted kudzu from sea to shining sea. New Dealers hailed it as “the miracle vine.” The Tennessee Valley Authority, America’s largest power-generating monopoly, imported kudzu plants from Asia and urged millions of farmers to plant it as a way of fighting soil erosion. Henry Wallace, FDR’s Secretary of Agriculture, presided over a national campaign to promote kudzu. His Soil Erosion Service had nurseries that produced some 73 million kudzu seedlings. There were farm subsidies to help those who couldn’t afford to spend their own money planting kudzu. The eager beavers in FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps planted millions and millions of kudzu seedlings. By 1945, some 500,000 acres in the southeastern United States were cultivated with kudzu. The Kudzu Club of America offered news and inspiration for some 20,000 kudzu fans. It’s easy to see why FDR must have viewed kudzu as something that could lift America’s spirits.
Unfortunately, political power can magnify the harm done by human error. It turned out the federal government might have backed the wrong horse, or the wrong vine, and kudzu did more than a little harm. Even in a crisis, though, a big government bureaucracy moves slowly. During the 1940s, the most aggressive kudzu promotion campaigns seem to have wound down. In the 1950s, the Agricultural Conservation Program removed kudzu from its list of recommended cover crops. The following decade, the Soil Conservation Service limited recommendations for planting kudzu. Then in the 1970s, the Soil Conservation Service took a drastic step, classifying kudzu as a weed.
Lately, the kudzu issue has become less clear. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture reports that when kudzu covers a building, it serves as a natural coolant and can help reduce air conditioning costs. So kudzu could turn out to be a key weapon in the War against Global Warming, provided people can hack their way through the vines and get out of their buildings. Surely, it’s worth a few billion, perhaps tens or hundreds of billions, to determine whether the miracle vine is friend or foe.
-- Jim Powell, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, author of FDR'S FOLLY, BULLY BOY, WILSON'S WAR, GREATEST EMANCIPATIONS, THE TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY and other books