Reports: Valuable rural lands vanishing
By PAM ZUBECK THE GAZETTE
Agricultural land is vanishing from Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West at a jolting rate, according to two recent studies. The first, by Environment Colorado’s Research and Policy Center, reports the state lost more than 2.5 million acres of agricultural land to development from 1987 to 2002. El Paso County lost 100,000 acres. The other study, Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Report Card released this week, found that nearly a quarter of the West’s ranches have given way to other uses in the past 30 years and that another 24 million acres of ranchland are expected to disappear by 2020. That’s important if the nation expects to feed itself and preserve healthy ecosystems, both reports said. The shift is caused by growing population, consolidation of the livestock industry, conservation ranchers who take land out of production to preserve it but not produce from it, a federal grazing permit shortage and government subsidies, the Colorado College report said. Farm output as a percentage of gross domestic product in the nation plunged from 11 percent in 1945 to 2.2 percent in 2004, Andrew Yarbrough, Colorado College student and ranch report researcher, said Tuesday at the Report Card’s conference. He also noted that farm employment has declined from 6.5 percent of the nation’s total employment in 1940 to 0.65 percent today. Meanwhile, farm prices are relatively stagnant — beef’s 2001 price of $1.11 a pound is only a nickel more than in 1991 — forcing 93 percent of farmers and ranchers to earn off-farm income to make ends meet. “Ranchers are losing money, and they’re losing it fast,” Yarbrough said. Both reports noted that converting ranch and farmland into homes and businesses further taps public services. It also could harm tourism, which relies on pristine open space to lure urban dwellers. Environment Colorado recommends managing growth and keeping farms and ranches in business with “buy local” campaigns and by forming “collective associations” to resist development pressures. Colorado College’s ranching panel offered success stories, such as that of Oregon ranchers Doc and Connie Hatfield of Country Natural Beef, a food cooperative that links producers with consumers. The co-op members practice sustainable agricultural practices, such as rotation grazing, and cattle are pastured and range-raised longer and in a feedlot for a shorter time than conventional beef. Hatfield said his beef engenders the romance of an earlier era, “the welcoming ring of a dinner bell at dusk” and “the smell of sage.” Another speaker, Dale Lasater of Lasater Grasslands Beef, a 30,000-acre ranch near Matheson, promoted his meat as “better for you, and better for the environment.” His cattle are finished on grass, never confined in feedlots, and are not fed growth hormones. Lasater, whose father eradicated prairie dogs from his land 50 years ago, recently reintroduced what many ranchers and the Department of Agriculture classify as a pest. To Lasater, “they are a keystone species that live in harmony with many other species.” The Colorado College conference continues through Thursday. For information, go to www.coloradocollege. edu/stateoftherockies.