Capital resources – both manmade and natural – are essential to human wellbeing. The loss and consolidation of capital resources can undermine the ability of semi-arid agricultural systems to recover from droughts and other ecological, economic, and social disturbances. In this study, I analyzed the link between capital resources and adaptive capacity on the high plains of eastern Colorado and western Kansas. I asked two questions: What small set of variables explains the history of wheatland systems on the high plains? Are the processes responsible for the patterns maintaining or eroding capital resources? I traced trends – number of farms, age of farmers, terms of trade (measured here as returns on management and risk), wheat yield, land retirement, and rural population – to create a historical profile of the region. I used data from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service and Economic Research Service. Some of the data had to be carefully pieced together from the two sources to ascertain longer-term trends because USDA reporting methods changed over the decades, requiring collation of datasets. I then used regression analyses to identify a small set of variables explaining the loss and consolidation of capital resources.
Results/Conclusions
Since 1975, the number of farms, terms of trade, and rural population decreased while the age of farmers, wheat yield, and land retirement increased on the high plains. Regression analyses revealed statistically significant relationships among capital resources and number of farms. Declining terms of trade is associated with fewer farms on the high plains, F (1,35) = 41.35, R2 = 0.54, p < 0.001. Declining financial capital is not the only predictor of fewer farms. Alternative land use options and depopulation are also an important part of the system’s historical profile. Together, conversion of croplands into grasslands (through enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program) and emigration from rural counties largely explain the decline in farms on the high plains, F (2,34) = 129.71, R2 = 0.91, p < 0.001. These trends compel the consolidation of agricultural activities and the associated consolidation of services supporting those activities. In other words, fewer farms indicate lost human and social capital in an area recognized by earlier researchers to have higher levels of social capital than elsewhere in the Great Plains. These social-ecological changes reduce mechanisms for coping with droughts and other disturbances, thereby weakening the system's adaptive capacity.