Agricultural Technology And The Remnant Tall Grass Prairie Landscape
Southern Manitoba Rural and Urban Settlement- circa 1970
By the mid-1900’s, new agricultural technology had created a rapid increase in crop production, allowing fewer people to farm larger areas of land. This, along with increasing urbanization in towns and cities, caused Manitoba to experience a massive rural depopulation.
Most of the remnant tall grass prairie and community pastures were swallowed up by housing and infrastructure for the booming suburbs. Of the Tall Grass Prairie that existed before European settlement, 99.9% had been destroyed by this time. Because the prairie ecosystem had been so completely altered, it will be impossible to restore the landscape to the ecosystem it once was. Although not yet a common concern for many Manitobans, to some, the loss of bio-diversity in the prairie is a devastating blow to the health of our environment.
