Kudzu was no accident of nature: federal agencies promoted it and paid for it, and the evidence shows an ecological impact that is real but smaller than the legend suggests. The Soil Conservation Service, created in 1935 as a USDA agency and now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service, tested, praised, and paid farmers to plant kudzu in the 1930s and 1940s, before the ecological cost was counted, as naturalist Bill Finch recounts in Smithsonian Magazine.
Get breaking news anytime, anywhere. Download the TOI app now!