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<br /> <br />o <br />,) <br />\..J <br />~ <br />..... <br />l'~ <br /> <br /> <br />SUMMARY <br /> <br />The Region comprises 87.5 million acres, 85.7 million of which <br />are land area with 1.8 million acres being water surface. About <br />76 percent of the land is federally-owned, 22 percent is privately' <br />owned and 2 percen t is state-owned. The vegetal cover is about 70 <br />percent range types and 20 percent forest types, the remainder being <br />urban, barren, cropland and miscellaneous. The range types include <br />grass, sagebrush and other small brush. The forest type is mainly' <br />pinyon-juniper and mountain shrub. Conifer forests other than pinyon- <br />juniper account for about 2 percent of the area. <br /> <br />In 1965, about 2.1 million acres were irrigated, 1.1 million <br />dry cropland, 2.3 million commercial timber, 0.4 million urban and <br />64.2 million acres were grazed. <br /> <br />The need for land and water for food and fiber production was <br />projected for 3 time frames,' 1965 to 1980, 1980 to 2000 and 2000 to <br />2020. The amount of land needed was closely related to the conserva- <br />tion treatment (production and land protection measures) the land <br />would receive. <br /> <br />The major part of this report deals with land treatment needed <br />to make possible the production of the food and fiber as projected <br />by OBE-ERS requirements. OBE-ERS requirements were based on projected <br />population, by the Office of Business Economics (OBE), and production <br />requirements by the Economic Research Service (ERS). The program <br />described in this appendix, denoted OBE-ERS, represents one way to <br />produce the projected requirements. Many other ways are possible, <br />but this was the way that seemed most logical. <br /> <br />Part of this appendix deals with the Going Program and is based <br />on the 1965 level of expenditure for conservation treatment. Unless <br />otherwise indicated, the appendix deals with the requirements for the <br />OBE-ERS level. <br /> <br />About 245,000 acres of new land need to be developed for irriga, <br />tion by 2020 to meet the projected production, Of this acreage, 6,000 <br />acres are needed to meet the increased needs and 239,000 acres to re- <br />place presently irrigated land that is expected to be lost to other <br />uses such as urban, industrial, transportation, utilities and recrea- <br />tion. About 14 million acres are suitable for irrigation which includes <br />presently irrigated land. The location of irrigable lands in relation <br />to the water supply is a problem. Many of the suitable and available <br />lands are far from the water source. <br />