we have several issues to deal with here
1. A lack of understanding of the climate cycle in the Great Plains (there is basically a 30 year wet-dry-inbetween cycle)
2. Commercial and institutional encouragement of farming on land that is marginal in the in between cycle and dry steppe or desert in the dry cycle
3. An actual belief at the time of settlement that 'rain follows the plow"
4. Bumper crop years during the wet period that happened to occur when demand was artificially high (due to World War I) followed by a decade of drier years followed by the dry years. Debts incurred during World War I required conditions to remain unchanged, not only climate but market conditions. They didn't
5. Some of the steps taken during the Roosevelt Administration were specifically to address some of the financial issues (paying farmers not to plant for example) and other farm subsidies, which were put into place to stabilize prices. But they required bad things to happen to demonstrate need for such. (at least enough to clear Congress anyway)
6. While there were some theories about better land use practices, like wind breaks for example, when you have to plant every acre to the maximum extent possible to clear enough money from depressed prices to avoid financial catastrophe, better land use practices were viewed as a luxury
And that is just to start with.....