ESRI’s July 2011 edition of ArcWatch features this video about the USDA’s implementation of GIS and cloud computing. In the video, Jonathan Albuom – the Chief Information Officer of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service – explains the services and data delivered through the USDA’s GIS applications and the advantages of hosting them in the cloud. The first applications is a retailer locator for SNAP – the Supplemental Nutrion Assistance Program formerly known as the Federal Food Stamp Program. Albuom describes the challenge of creating such a large retailer locator (displaying the 216,000 retailers nationwide and for use by the 43 million Americans enrolled in the program) while having  very limited resources. By hosting the SNAP Retailer Locator in the cloud, the USDA found an economical solution because of the scalability that cloud computing provides. In addition, Albuom discusses Your Food Environment Atlas, which maps food, nutrition and socioeconomic related data throughout the country. Although more GIS-related resources were available for this project, cloud computing is used to ensure the application can handle spikes in traffic. Lastly, the USDA has also developed the Food Desert Locator as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative.This application maps Food Deserts, which are defined as low-income areas that also have a substantial population with poor access to a supermarket or large grocery store.