Approximately 100 local landowners, professional advisors, and agency personnel came to the Cortez Conference Center on January 12 to hear speakers from around Colorado discuss estate planning, conservation easements, and tools for keeping the farm in the family. Lynne Sher-rod, executive director of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust, spoke of the challenge facing all of us who care about helping agricultural families stay in agriculture.

As a fifth-generation rancher from the Elk River Valley (north of Steamboat Springs), Lynne has seen her quiet agricultural community become a busy and expensive resort suburb. Too many of her neighbors either can’t afford to remain in the livestock business, or don’t want to deal with the hassle of new neighbors who might be unfamiliar with the smells, sounds, and long hours associated with making a living from the land. Too many of those whose love of the land runs deep are leaving for the cheaper and friendlier towns of the Midwest and elsewhere. Subdivision often follows, increasing land values further and deepening the cycle.

But the Elk River Valley is not alone. According to the 1997 Census of Agriculture, conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ag lands all around Colorado are disappearing at a staggering rate. From 1987 to 1997, Colorado lost 1.4 million acres of productive agricultural land to development. This loss is equivalent to losing a 1.5-mile-wide, 140-mile-long strip of land each year, or the distance between Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs.

At what cost this conversion, Lynne asked? Consider that each American farmer feeds over 120 people, that America has 7 percent of the world’s tillable land but produces 13 percent of the world’s food, and that American consumers pay the smallest percentage of their income for food (12 percent) of any country in the world. Can this situation continue if productive agricultural land is continually converted to other uses?

The Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust was created to help those families who did not want their land to become another statistic. Since its inception by fellow Elk River Valley rancher Jay Fetcher in 1995, the Land Trust has partnered with landowners around the state to place over 23,000 acres of agricultural ground in conservation easements.

But what are they preserving? Certainly open space. Certainly wildlife habitat. But to the Cattlemen’s Land Trust, the most important thing they can help preserve is a way of life. Someone said at the workshop that there is no longer enough money in raising livestock to consider it a "business" — it’s best thought of as a way of life.

Unfortunately, conservation easements won’t guarantee that the market will turn friendly for producers, or guarantee that family farmers will have a fair shake against agribusiness conglomerates, or guarantee that it will rain this year. But through the passionate work of people like Lynne, these easements just might help some families see their land pass intact from one generation to the next.

I believe that many folks arrived at the workshop thinking that development pressure is nothing to worry about in Southwest Colorado. I also think that most of those same people might have left wondering if our area might be the next Elk River Valley. I hope that Lynne’s stories, and the stories of those we heard the rest of the day, led everyone to recognize the opportunity before us- to help families stay in agriculture NOW before land values are beyond our grasp.