According to last year’s report on agriculture from the U.S. Census, the American farmer is aging. The percentage of farmers and ranchers over the age of 75 grew by 15.1 percent between 2007 and 2012, while the number of farmers and ranchers under the age of 54 decreased by 16.1 percent during the same time period.
Several programs are trying to entice veterans into the agricultural field, while the AgrAbility Project, which helps older and disabled farmers gain various forms of assistance, is helping existing farmers to plant, shepherd and harvest longer.
In Colorado, the program enables Dean Wierth to tend to his herd of goats in Park County, despite his declining balance and vision. Using an electric cart, he is able to feed and tend to the livestock living on the 40 acres he owns, plus the additional 40 acres he leases.
“It’s been a godsend. My balance was just about gone,” he tells the Denver Post about the AgrAbility program.
For 16 years, Goodwill Industries and Colorado State University have run the AgrAbility program in Colorado, helping 538 farming and ranching families during that time. Recently, the federal government kicked in $720,000 to fund the program for four more years.
Wierth, a disabled Vietnam veteran himself, is now pitching in to start a facility that will teach veterans how to farm and ranch. South Park Heritage Association and the Wounded Warrior USA Outreach Program are currently raising funds to purchase land for the program.
Robert Fetsch, co-director of the Colorado AgrAbility Project says, “Most farmers and ranchers don’t retire; they just keep on keeping on as long as they can. Our best course for now is to help them stay active and working, so they can continue to thrive, remain independent and be loyal taxpayers in their communities.”
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Tag: Ranching
This Innovative Business Keeps Open Land and Western Traditions Alive
Rent grassland, save the cowboys.
That’s the aim of a new Colorado program creatively circumventing the staggeringly high price of real estate to stave off development and keep a traditional lifestyle alive — and creating a foodie favorite so in demand that Whole Foods can’t keep the shelves stocked.
The solution started, as solutions often do, with a problem. Tai Jacober saw his family’s land divided and sold after his grandfather died. And he and his brothers couldn’t afford to buy a ranch.
“You can’t buy ag land in Colorado,” Jacober, a third-generation rancher, told Kelly Bastone of 5280. The cost of maintaining undeveloped pasturelands has become too high for many ranching families in Colorado. What used to be open acreage now holds second homes and resorts.
Since he couldn’t buy, Jacober decided to rent.
Crystal River Meats of Carbondale, Colo., leases pasture land on a large scale. It’s a win-win — Jacober and ranchers like him get to keep their livelihood, while landowners get to support traditional ranching culture and snag agricultural tax credits without having to run cattle themselves.
Farmers and ranchers have leased land before, but Crystal River Meats does it wholesale, renting 250,000 acres dotted throughout various communities. And their local, humanely-produced beef flies off the Whole Foods shelves.
Jacober has big dreams for his rental business, dreams that stretch far beyond Carbondale’s cows. He wants Crystal River Meats to serve as a blueprint for other communities across the state to preserve that Western ideal of open land and cattlemen, especially near the state’s popular ski towns.
“There’s a cultural benefit to having a viable ag operation that preserves the rural look — and the cowboys that come with that,” Jacober says.
Thanks to projects like Jacober’s, the open vistas of the West might just have a chance.
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