LASALLE — There was no heartbreak or rage in the voices of a dozen farmers who gathered to hear that the federal government had few tools left to fight the drought sweeping the country.
In a large garage housing tractors and other equipment on a Weld County farm, the men and women quietly checked their watering schedules on iPhones or exchanged business cards with neighbors and potential partners as they waited for a tour of the disaster area.
The mood of professional courtesy and indefatigable resolve greeted the remarks from a representative from the federal government about the painfully obvious: the impacts of the drought reflected far more than just the weather.
John Berge, deputy administrator for field operations for the Farm Service Agency, immediately acknowledged that political gridlock and bitter partisanship in the nation’s capital had inflicted greater hardship on the nearly 1,600 counties ravaged by the drought.
“I know this is stuff you already know, but this is a perfect storm in many ways. You have no rain, and very high temperatures. There was very little snow pack in the last winter and this definitely includes the Rockies. There was not the rainfall this spring that we anticipated. And then we started hitting 100 degrees in early June,” Berge said. “Then you compound that issue with the fact that we don’t have the policy tools necessary to address these needs in terms of mitigating the drought.”
Berge described the political situation as the perfect storm.
“An expiring farm bill, an ongoing budget conversation that devolves into an argument that’s unwinnable, a situation now where our mandatory program side and our discretionary spending side have both been cut multi years in a row because we’re dealing with continuing resolutions moving forward,” Berge said. “That’s a whole round-about way to say we don’t have a lot of tools left, and what tools we do have, we’ve used.”
While Congress is mired in political trench warfare, the farmers stayed above the fray. The conversation focused on the logistics of getting aid from the FSA — and water from the wells.
The tour examined Eckhardt Farms, where owner Dave Eckhardt said the state government needed to unlock the wells to allow farmers to mitigate the dryness.
And although this tour was meant to provide a snapshot of the drought in Weld County, the farmers near LaSalle are facing a very different situation from the farmers from other nearby areas.
Artie Elmquist farms 320 acres of land near Frederick and although he’s lost a crop of sugar beets, he said he’s in a much better position than farmers further east in the county.
“Those guys are in a hard spot trying to get the governor to unlock the wells, and they’re in a very different situation with water rights availability. But over here, we use water coming down from the mountains,” Elmquist said. “I get my water mostly from Boulder Creek, and I supplement by with renting from the Big Thompson.”
Elmquist said that crop insurance won’t necessarily help those who have lost what they’ve planted to the drought.
“Crop insurance can provide some compensation, but on irrigated crops, it’s traditionally been that you shouldn’t plant a crop you don’t think you have water for,” Elmquist said. “We’re in uncharted territory as far as I’m concerned, we don’t know how many bushels we’ll be harvested — no idea.”
Elmquist is a third-generation farmer in the area, and he’s able to take the long view. He’s still optimistic about making a profit because he planned early for the drought, and the drought’s effect across North America will lead to much higher yields for what survives.
“Overall, it could be an OK year, based on mostly we’re going to receive record prices,” Elmquist said. “But a lot of what’s going on is politics, and we could have been prepared for this.”
The Palizzi family has been farming in Adams County since 1929, and their farm and its produce are a fixture of the community. But for Debbie Palizzi, 51, who is the fourth generation of the family to farm the land, the drought has brought uncertainty to the future.
“I’ve never seen the conditions we have today,” Palizzi said. “We’ve lost a lot; it’s been a very difficult year. We’ve had to pick and choose what we keep alive, and what we want to let go.”
The farm gets its water from local ditchs, and the drought has brought watering restrictions. The farm is required to maintain a six-day water schedule: four days without watering, and then a brief 48 hours of watering, which requires difficult choices for the owners.
“It isn’t enough to soak the ground like we should,” Palizzi said. “What we choose to water, we get it wet and move on.”
Palizzi said the farm is projecting a 40-percent loss this year.
And state politics, which has pitted agricultural producers against land developers, has exacerbated the brutal choices she’s trying to make.
“The state has shut our well off, and that’s why we have to use ditch water,” Palizzi said. “Gov. Hickenlooper has talked out the side of his mouth, but they’re not here to help us at all. Hickenlooper never visited these farms. They could turn the wells on, but Hickenlooper won’t do the emergency order. He claims he can’t, but he says our food should be our first priority, yet they continue development. How are you going to save the farms if they drive up?”
For many famers, crop insurance and higher produce prices have been cold comfort during these times.
“We have no crop insurance because it’s too expensive, and in terms of vegetables, a lot of growers don’t have it because of the price,” Palizzi said. “And so far, the public isn’t willing to pay the higher prices. But they’ll see the higher prices in a lot of ways.”
Palizzi points to a series of dominos set to fall. She said $12 for a small bale of alfalfa, or $14 for a small bale of grass will lead to all animal products costing more.
“Meat and milk and eggs, all of it will be higher, and we’ll see the effects this year,” she said. “And if we have another bad winter, you can kiss local produce goodbye. Hello, Chile, here we are. We can expect all of our food to be foreign.”
Contact Ben Wiebesiek at 303-659-2522, ext. 206, or email bwiebesiek@metrowestnewspapers.com.
High and dry
