The rural Kansans I talked with say they care too much about the future of their land to fail to protect the Ogallala. The vitality of their soils is precious to them. These farmers assure me that Kansas will come to embrace sustainable agricultural practices like no-till farming, cover crops, and other conservation measures, completely transforming their relationship to the land over the next few decades. They’ll have to, the logic goes, because the stakes are too high and the fallout so potentially cataclysmic.

But is that realistic? Can people truly be counted on to be voluntary environmentalists, and preserve a critical public resource for future generations, in the complete absence of regulation? Will Kansas farmers act against their short-term economic self-interest? Finding out required talking to dozens of people, making a visit to Ted Turner’s bison ranch, and tracking the impact of the state’s most influential billionaire: Charles Koch.

~

“People with no stake in the outcome of farming want to make the rules,” says Lon Frahm, whose family owns 22,000 acres, and who farms a total of 34,000 acres by Colby, near the state’s northwest corner. “Anyone who wants to change the rules ought first to come out here to live.”

We spoke at City Limits Bar & Grill located just off I-70, the east/west transportation corridor connecting Kansas City with Denver, Colorado. The new nostalgia-themed space is part of a thriving fast-food and motel hub serving interstate truckers and travelers. In Frahm’s view, extraordinary technological gains will make environmentally sustainable agriculture not just possible in Kansas, but the norm. He points out that new techniques on the horizon could allow farmers to cut chemical use to 1 percent of what’s typical today. That attitude is common among the state’s producers. They can be trusted to do what’s best for the land, they believe, because that’s going to be the most sensible and economically efficient way to operate.

Environmentalists in Kansas have to be pragmatists, says Rob Manes, Kansas director of the Nature Conservancy. “Kansas hasn’t been very good at conservation and environmental activism.” A year ago, he says, he stopped believing progress was possible. But lately, he’s regained a measure of optimism. “The more successful farmers and ranchers are talking about soil health. They are knowledgeable about the environment.” And, instead of talking about productivity, they have started talking about profitability, he says, a critical shift in thinking to curb the overuse of expensive chemicals.

Still, Manes acknowledges that progress comes only voluntarily here. “If what we do isn’t commensurate with what everyone wants, it will be undone in Kansas,” he says. “Environmental protection must exist within the culture and commerce of farming.”

The theory that private landowners will lead the state’s conservation efforts is being put to the test with the crisis facing the Ogallala.

Kansas has a priority system—first in time, first in line—that rewards the state’s earliest farmers with unrestricted access to water. In practice, with the seemingly limitless Ogallala water, farmers have pumped as much as they want throughout the years. And why not? There are no regulations in place to prevent them from doing so.