Some of the world’s best soils are being destroyed in the Northern Illinois region because of growth in community development and construction, said Cliff Simonson, a member of DeKalb County Farmland Association.

Areas of Northern Illinois and Iowa contain some of the best soils in the world, said Michael Konen of NIU’s geography department. The soils in these related areas give Illinois and Iowa some of the prime farmland in the world. This allows these areas to be some of the best food producers as well.

“The reasons the soils in this part of the country are so good is because they were formed in areas of prairie vegetation,” Konen said. “Soils that are formed this way combine high organic materials and silty surfaces.”

Simonson said agriculture is the only sustainable, economical use of land.

“Farmland and water are most valuable resources and are irreplaceable,” he said.

When referring to farmland as sustainable, it means trying to preserve farmland at a rate that won’t be permanently damaging.

The United States is the only developed country that doesn’t put preservation of natural resources and farmland first, Simonson said.

“That would either make us smarter, or dumber,” he said.

One of the problems, Simonson said, is that realtors and developers buy up the farmland and let it sit idle.

However, Konen had another way of looking at the situation.

“If a farmland sits idle, that could be the best growth that land could have, since it wouldn’t be dug up with tools,” Konen said. “The real dilemma is that everything around here is prime farmland. Since everything is prime farmland, you can’t just stay stop building altogether.”

There is no way you will be able to preserve every piece of land, and there is no way you will be able to stop building on it completely, Konen said.

“There is no clear answer to the problem,” he said. “With proper planning, we can preserve it.”