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Show AGRICULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM by J. 0. ELTON When the pioneers came to Utah they settled on land adjacent to flowing water. When more pioneers came the settlements grew in size until the supply of water was all appropriated. As far as agriculture is concerned Utah reached saturation many years ago. All flowing water has long since been appropriated. During the last two summers with the Utah Copper mills either down or greatly curtailed, Salt Lake City has been short of water, and every City Administration has tried to obtain more water because it is realized we cannot grow unless we get more water. We have seen the cities buy water rights to expand, and they have done this at the expense of agriculture. As the cities have developed industries have come, and they too have had to have water. Again we have seen farm lands purchased for the water and the lands used as tailings dumps or sold for dry farms or pasturage. The trend is inevitable. Only 2- l/ 2f. of Utah's area is under cultivation. Our limit is water, not land. We see around us hundreds of thousands of acres of fine land now covered with sagebrush. Were water available this land could be developed into the finest farm land. A few years age an exhaustive study was made by the Vandegrift Organization on the economic dependence of the population of Utah. It was found that 110,000 out of our 508,000 people live on farms, and that 68,000 additional are serving the farming population, making a total of 178,000 economically dependent on our farms for a living. This same study also shows that 48.5lf » cf the farming population are engaged in producing for expert while 51 » 43f « supply the home market and feed 325,152 other people economically dependent on five of the other basic industries* If this home market can be expanded so that all of the farm products can be consumed within the State then the prices received for these products will be much higher, because the exportable surplus determines the price and beats it down. While Utah produces 1/ 7 of the copper, lead and zinc mined in the United States which is exported for refining and fabrication, we have the raw material supply to provide the work for a great consuming population. Cur figures show that the production of our copper, lead and zinc only requires approximately 15,000 workers within the State, while 45,000 workers are required to prepare these metals for the consumer, yet *?$ or 240,000 of our 508,000 people are economically dependent on the metal industry. We are only doing 1/ 4 of our job on these metals. If we did all of it, we would have an additional 720,000 people and they in turn would need all the farmers can produce and in addition would have to import an amount equivalent to 50% of all our farmers can now produce. If this industrialization of Utah takes place, the farmers have their work cut out for them. We must have more farm land. The last census figures show that Utah had 843,000 acres cf irrigated land under cultivation, and 352,000 acres of dry farm land. The sum cf these two amount to approximately 2- l/ 2f » of Utah's total acreage. - 11 - |