Ag acres whittled down by growth and low prices

Mike Shay has noticed something about the farmers who come in to his office at the West Greeley Soil Conservation District: They’re getting older.

More and more of the men he sees are in their late 50s and up. Not only are they older, but Shay sees a change in their attitude as well. With margins so close and commodity prices lower than many have seen in decades, many feel some desperation tinged with sadness.

“I talked to one farmer — and as their age goes up, I think we’ll hear a lot more of this — he said, ‘Son, It just ain’t fun anymore,'” Shay said.

Shay’s district covers most of the western portion of Weld County, including the territory south of Greeley. It is that area, especially the part wedged between Interstate 25 and U.S. Highway 85, that concerns Shay. Caught between the pincers of high land prices and the costs of farming, crop and rangeland is slowly disappearing.

The same thing is happening in Larimer County, as growth has whittled agricultural land down to two main belts, said Larimer County Extension Agent Bob Hamblen.

The first belt stretches in a crescent north of the Anheuser-Busch plant through Wellington and arcs west along the Owl Canyon Road. The second is a smaller piece that runs south of County Road 402 on Lovelands southern edge to the Weld County border and includes some farms around Berthoud.

Figures from the 1992 U.S. Census show that Larimer County lost 32,000 acres of farm and rangeland between 1982 and 1992. Weld County actually gained 105,000 acres in that same period.

However, the building boom that hit this area beginning in 1992 has changed everything.

The updated census figures for 1997, which were released in mid-February, show the following: Larimer County lost 33,000 acres of farmland between 1987 and 1997, while Weld County lost 191,000 acres between those years.

According to people involved in agricultural issues, three things are happening to farmers in the Larimer-Weld corridor.

The first is the fall of commodity prices. “They are miserable,´ said Hamblen, ticking off a list. “Wheat, corn, cattle and hogs are all bad. The only things not doing too bad are sugar beets, sheep and dry beans.”

If it was just a matter of lousy prices in the marketplace, Hamblen believes farmers would hunker down, wait for better times and get by as they always have. However, the second factor — growth — has become both an irritant and a tempting escape hatch.

“The big thing is this is a wonderful place to live in everybody’s eyes,´ said Weld County Extension Agent Jerry Alldredge. “People are moving to this part of the county, and land values have substantially increased.”

Farm land is sold to people eager to build a house and live in the country, but the problem is that some of these people have an unrealistic view of country life.

“They think it’s odorless,´ said Jeff Jones of the American Farmland Trust. “And they think it’s quiet. They don’t appreciate or understand when you fire up your machinery to put up your hay in the middle of the night.”

As farmers get sick and tired of complaints from their neighbors, they increasingly weigh the hassle of farming against the benefits of selling their land outright and becoming financially set for life. Many take the latter option.

The pattern is accelerating. Now that most of the marginal land is gone, growth is starting to cut into prime farmland.

“I have a file drawer full of site revisions,´ said Shay, as he opened that drawer and began plucking out fat files at random; a bridal shop; a seven-lot subdivision; a PUD change of zoning. “I just don’t think in the southern portion of Weld County that farming has much of a future,” Shay said.

Over in Larimer County, Hamblen finds that growth has changed his job as well. Instead of providing information on grain and livestock, he’s answering questions about weed control or overgrazing from people trying to keep a horse on too small a plot of land.

However according to Dr. David Carlson, a resource analyst for the Colorado Department of Agriculture, farmers do have some tools left at their disposal.

“First, ag landowners and producers have the opportunity to shape the landscape more than anyone,” Carlson said. “They have the land. Ninety percent of nonfederal, nonstate land is owned by them.”

Ag producers can tap into a huge market for open space, environmental quality and protection from urban sprawl. Groups of landowners in areas such as the Larimer-Weld corridor will have to band together and represent 10,000 acres at a time. Such an association could offer the public large tracts of open space for sale as well as work to develop hotels, business parks and golf courses on marginal land.

“This would compensate farmers for not developing some of their best land,” Carlson said.

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