America set a new thing in motion in 1872, establishing Yellowstone National Park as the first national park in the country, and the first one in the world. With this, the practice of setting aside nature and wilderness, roping it off against pressures of development, commenced.
Now, we should see there is another type of land that might need such designation to protect it.
Farmland.
I guess I'd like to see Utah have the world's first farmland preservation area. It could be a massive one. Or , maybe, even as we have a number of national parks, we could have a number of farmland preservation areas. We might not be able to fill the world's future food needs, but we have enough open space that we could be a definite contributor.
Yesterday, I spoke of pumping water from the ocean to our state. I spoke of the oceans as being an unharnessed source of water we have yet to conquer. I ask, can we consider bringing in and desalinating enough water to turn our state's vast open areas into large farming areas? If we did this, we could consider picking our areas; Perhaps we would decide to protect all current farmland. But, on the other hand, perhaps we would decide to let our cities could continue to grow into areas now being farmed while we shifted our farmland in places now given to brush and trees.
Our limits on what we can do to contribute to the world's needs might be limited only by the scoffer's tendency to say it can't be done. It is but a dream, but I say this thing might be something that could be achieved. We would need to study it to see if it could be done. Is piping in ocean water and desalinating it even practical? And, if it is, is it practical when we are speaking of enough of it to farm vast areas of farmland?
Again, let us not scoff the idea off without looking at it. Perhaps it is impractical, but I think we could jump too quickly at that conclusion. And, if it is not impractical, then it is a great idea.
(Blog added to and altered 8/28/16)
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