Transmission from our friends The Greenhorns

Sharp hooves, and a fierce nibbling habit make sheep herds 'high impact' users of grazing territory. For this reason, land managers of the U.S. Grazing Service in 1939 sought to limit soil degradation by charting the capacity of the region to sustain the sheep. The dotted sheep corridors are mountain-passes that are accessible to watering holes and train tracks.

Data-intensive management of our agricultural soils, precious aquifers and urban foodsheds remains critically relevant today. Now, more than ever we have the digital tools to carefully inventory our natural resources. Google Earth, satellite technology, and multi-layered mapping software can serve our need for 'best use' of this American land. It is the job of our government, the USDA, to steward our land and carefully assess its productive capacity and conservation value for the benefit of present and future Americans. Land-use planning, food-security planning, water-shed planning--such foresight could provide greenspace corridors, organic farming zones, gmo-free areas, and targeted areas of intensive food production nearby large cities.

The government already tinkers quite significantly with American agriculture- incentivizing overproduction of corn and subsidized commodities, casting a blind eye to pollution, run-off and erosive technologies. Our hope for change revolves around the needs of farmers and the people they feed. The sustainable foodsystem our nation requires will speedily arise from a thoughtful federal land-use policy based on sane expectations of the land. The data-based, land-based, future-based expectations will yield a landscape of lasting fertility and flourishing rural economies peopled by farmers, entrepreneurs, families and organic delight.

Yes! We can serve our country healthy food!

The original of this map resides in the collections at the Prelinger LIbrary in San Francisco, California. The Library is appropriation-friendly and open to the public, a treasure trove archive. Severine and The Greenhorns are grateful to the Prelingers for their fierce commitment to rare agricultural texts, images and ephemera.


Young farmers: join the mapping project online. WWW.SERVEYOURCOUNTRYFOOD.NET

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