City’s agriculture heritage being squeezed

BRIGHTON — As Sakata family members look out from their Sakata Farms operations center at the intersection of Bromley and 4th streets in Brighton — where their broccoli, onions, cabbage and corn arrive — they see development pushing in on them as increasing traffic makes it harder to get their trucks in and out.

“We can see the King Soopers on one side and the Wal-Mart (distribution center) on the other,” Joanna Sakata said. “But we don’t worry about them as much as we worry about worldwide competition for our products.”

As a point of reference, Bob Sakata started farming in Colorado in 1946 and now has working for him the grandchildren of some of his first employees. Today, Sakata Farms comprises some 3,200 acres and is one of the top 100 vegetable growers in the United States. To say that Sakata Farms — as well as the other vegetable farms and greenhouses in the vicinity — are central to the Brighton landscape understates the case.

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But the three-way squeeze of development, drought and taxes is on, and the economic pressures that the agricultural sector faces in these times exist on local, national and international levels. The local context may be the friendliest of the three because, as a traditional farming community, the city of Brighton takes its attachment to agriculture very seriously (even if it was named for Brighton Beach, NY, over 100 years ago).

Near the beginning of the boom times in the mid-’90s, Brighton’s Comprehensive Development Plan was restructured to preserve the city’s freestanding status as well as its agricultural heritage. The goal has been to keep significant amounts of land agriculturally productive by designating them as open space. That planning would not only support an important economic sector, but also maintain a buffer between Brighton and neighboring communities.

Keeping ag a challenge

Marv Falconburg, community-development director for the city of Brighton, said it has been a challenge to plan for the future and to work with farmers who want to keep their options open.

“There are many farmers in this area who just want to sell out. They clearly do not want to be part of an open-space plan,” he said. “We need to be clear that we have no interest in interfering with property rights. We have made working with farmers a high priority so that we can operate from shared interests.”

Simple census numbers underscore the dilemma that farmers face in how to manage their land as a financial asset or, increasingly, as a retirement plan. Between 1990 and 2000, the population of Brighton grew from just over 14,000 to nearly 23,000. The population projection for 2005 stands at 26,000. The ongoing question is: Where will all those people live and where will they work, shop and find entertainment?

Homes (with an average cost edging up towards $200,000) and shopping centers need land, and operations like the Sakata’s and David Petrocco Farms (along U.S. Highway 85) sit on prime real estate. Once the vegetable farmers sell their land (as most of the dairy farmers have done) it will leave the ag sector and enter the “land conversion” databank.

“When we look at agricultural land, we have to look at some brutal facts,´ said Dr. David Carlson with the Department of Agriculture. “For agricultural uses, an acre of land is worth about $100. That same land used for housing development is worth $10,000.”

Indeed, many farmers in the Brighton area look at their land as a unique 401(k) plan (one that cannot be compromised by creative accounting practices). Ivan Grein, a retired dairyman who once owned Headachers Dairy Farm, noted that most of the dairy farmers once located in Adams County have moved out to Morgan County.

“Around here the price of land is so high and there are so few kids who want to go into the business that it only makes sense to sell,” he said. “Farmers never get depressed; they just quit.”

Of his three sons, only Grein’s youngest has stayed in agriculture, raising a few beef cattle and now precious alfalfa hay — which brings up the matter of the drought.

“A lot of the vegetable growers have their own wells,” Grein said. “But if you are growing hay or field crops, the drought has been bad.”

Water is everything

Water is everything to a farmer or rancher, and in this third year of drought (with no significant relief in sight) those who raise cattle or sweet corn look to the future with some trepidation. Bob Lembke, partner in the development of Bromley Park, who has long been a student of water issues, said next year’s water allocations through CBT shares could be down as much as 70 percent.

Vegetable farmers who do not depend on CBT shares, but who have relied on their wells for irrigation water, will not be exempt from the shortage. The Groundwater Appropriators for the South Platt River (with the unfortunate acronym GASP) will certainly be forced to review appropriations formulas. A cutback on water appropriations for large-scale vegetable growers could further compromise profit margins already damaged by international competition.

So is there hope for agriculture in an urban world of development and rising land prices? Falconburg suggested that small-scale operations, such as the new Berry Patch Farms, could be compatible with urban development.

“A 20- to 30-acre operation that is labor intensive and sells to a local market might be successful and would help Brighton maintain its agricultural character,” he said.

Carlson also remains remarkably sanguine about the potential for a new kind of arrangement between agriculturalists and urbanites.

“There are many linkages between what city dwellers and farmers value,” he said. “Both care about open space and environmental protection. If farmers and ranchers would work together and come up with their own plan for large-scale land management, then they could sell some development rights and still farm, perhaps more efficiently. They could also control their own destiny.”

This novel kind of planning would respond to a farmer/rancher’s need to make a living and to the value that urbanites put on not only open space but on the value of agriculture in the American social fabric. A study conducted by Peter Fix (et al.) for the Colorado Department of Agriculture found that (statistically) 84 percent of those along the Front Range thought that it was “very important” to maintain land and water in agriculture production. Seventy-eight percent viewed agriculture as an important quality-of-life element.

Of course, the city planners in Brighton already understood the quality-of-life piece.

“We will keep trying to maintain our open space,´ said Falconburg. “To do that, we need to work with the farmers who have maintained this land, and to the new residents who will benefit from its remaining open and productive.”