A new greenbelt, a fresh garden to feed Utah's swelling population. A new, highly productive farming frontier. That is the
future I envision for Juab County and southern Utah County if a consistent supply of water is delivered to the region through the Spanish Fork Canyon-Nephi Pipeline portion of the Central Utah Project.Just add water, and that desert will bloom. This is the next great agricultural district in Utah, and the state certainly needs to develop a new agricultural corridor in central Utah.
Utah has lost 930,000 acres, nearly 1,453 square miles, of food-producing farmland since 1973 to development and urban sprawl. Getting water to central Utah will help lessen the negative impact of the loss of that land.
According to food and land studies at Cornell University, each of us needs 2.2 acres to live, eat, work and play. It's 2.2 for you. We use one acre of land per capita for living space, municipal services and infrastructure use. We also require 1.2 acres of prime farmland per capita to supply our basic food and fiber (clothing) needs. When you combine those two numbers we get the 2.2 for you, and me.
Unfortunately, in many places, even Utah, we don't have the 1.2 food acres, and we are depending on other sources - including foreign - for those food needs. Each person in Utah has only 0.6 acres of land for food.
Juab County farms 332,686 acres, the 11th largest number of acres among Utah's 29 counties. However, only 20,097 of those acres (6.04 percent) are irrigated. Additionally, Juab has the third-smallest income per acre farmed, netting $27.95 per acre. The average among all 11 counties is $65.13 per acre, 2.69 times that of Juab County.
What Juab County and parts of southern Utah County lack is water. The availability of rich, fertile land in Juab and southern Utah County for agriculture is not an issue, but turning that soil into productive farmland by providing a stable, year-round source of water is a significant issue. It amounts to the land being fertile but underutilized.
Farmers and ranchers could double or quadruple their yields on the same tract of land if they had a consistent water supply. The Spanish Fork-Nephi Pipeline also will provide some municipal and industrial water to the region and becomes the most important element in the growth and economic development of the entire region. You create more in-state jobs, and you are able to deliver cross to Utah markets without the traditional freight markup for transportation.
Construction of the Diamond Fork System and the Spanish Fork Canyon-Nephi Pipeline were approved more than 20 years ago and continue to be a vital, viable piece of the state's water-delivery system. However, two small groups recently suggested that the pipeline be turned north to divert the CUP water to the Salt Lake City metropolitan area for municipal and industrial use.
All of the 12 original counties participating in the CUP have invested their tax money in the entire Central Utah Project, and they've paid their fair share and watched as the Salt Lake Valley's and other metro areas' water-delivery systems and treatment plants were completed first.
Taxpayers in the Salt Lake Valley will get exactly the water they paid for, and taxpayers in central Utah are due to get the CUP water their tax dollars have paid for.
A year ago, a Dan Jones & Associates poll of Utah residents in conjunction with the Utah Growth Summit reported that more than 75 percent of the state's population considered farmland preservation a high priority. The survey also showed they were willing to pay additional taxes to protect food producing open space because they were concerned about urban sprawl. The Governor's Growth Summit identified water preservation and the development and delivery of water resources as a major solution to Utah's growing pains.
For the fourth consecutive year, grain production globally could not keep pace with consumption. World grain reserves now stand at 277 million tons, some 40 million below what is considered safe to meet emergencies. Historically, Utah has attempted to maintain a 90-day supply of grain. However, the grain supply for this past summer were at 30 days. Grain is the most reliable gauge of food supplies, since it provides most of humankind's calories either directly or through grain-fed meat.
As the population of our state continues to expand, we need to answer the challenge agriculturally. But that takes farmland and water. Utah consumers spend only about 11 percent of their monthly income for food, while consumers in Europe, South America, Asia, Russia and other parts of the world must pay 30 percent to 60 percent of their incomes for food. We're fortunate in Utah to have the farmland and the water available; now we just need to deliver the water to where it is needed most so we can maintain the standard of living we all enjoy.