Utah, like most of the United States, started out its economic life as a farming state. Davis County and parts of Salt Lake, Utah and Weber counties boasted some of the most fertile soil in the country. We grew hard winter wheat on dry farms, produced milk for Utah cheese and other dairy products, cultivated orchards on thousands of acres and grew enough vegetables for export to other states.

Now, most of that rich, black soil has disappeared under asphalt. Tens of thousands of homes have replaced the rows of corn, the apple and peach trees, the pastureland and dairy farms. Some 464,500 acres of farmland are gone.

That's a sad fact for a number of reasons: Most of our food must be transported from other parts of the country, adding to the cost; the green open spaces we once took for granted have been replaced by suburbia, and that means more vehicles on our roads and more pollution in our air; kids and adults miss out on the benefit of working the land.

But, in a surprising and fortunate twist, the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah now reports that farms are making something of a comeback. Not the farms that once covered hundreds of acres, but much smaller plots that often employ organic and intensive farming methods.

The U. research shows that the number of urban farms one to 50 acres in size has grown 20 percent since 1974, even while the total number of acres under full-time cultivation fell. That's a boon, both to people who have a love of farms and farming and to those of us who love to eat and like the idea of buying home-grown food. What's more surprising is that some of these farmers are making a full-time living off the land. The report says that 44 farms along the Wasatch Front urban corridor comprised almost 8,000 acres in 2007 and brought in more than a half-million dollars in sales.

Some of these 21st century farmers live on their farms and some lease land elsewhere. A few of the small plots are actually back yards of urban and suburban homes. The owners contract with a business that does the farming and they get a share of the produce. Community Supported Agriculture is a program that lets members share produce in exchange for paying a fee to keep local farms going.

Salt Lake County is getting into the act, too. It has started a program to lease unused county land to nonprofit groups for community gardens, to commercial farmers and to producers of biofuels.

Urban farmers rekindle the self-reliance of Utah pioneers to meet today's needs. We applaud them.