Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper would like to see a new political party called the Agriculture First Party. That was one of the comments he made on a hot Thursday afternoon at an overlook to McPhee Reservoir.
A roundtable of about two dozen gathered on Aug. 27 to discuss impacts of the ongoing drought. They included Montezuma County Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer, Dolores County Commissioner Eric Stiasny, and Amber Clark, executive director of Dolores River Boating Advocates.
Hickenlooper voiced concern for ag producers, saying, “We need a political party that is pro-farmer and pro-rancher.”
He said no civilization has ever prospered if it could not feed its people.
“Farmers should come first,” he said. “They should be our highest priority.”
Ken Curtis, the general manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District, said the last two and a half decades have been a roller-coaster for the local agriculture community. They received just a 10 percent supply of water this year.
“It’s hard to make a living when you have that repeatedly,” he said.
“We’re almost empty,” Curtis said of the reservoir. “We’re 65 feet down [from a full pool] and we’re all shutting off this weekend. It’s August. We should be running through October.”
Local farmer Brian Wilson said the impact of the drought on farming has been devastating. He spent $70,000 this year purchasing water, he said.
His son, Landan Wilson, a member of the DWCD board, agreed. “It’s hard to make a living when things are out of your control,” he said. Fertilizer and fuel costs have been rising, and the cost of new farm equipment makes it almost impossible for a young person to begin farming, he said.
“Agriculture is the lifeblood of America,” he said. “We need to be protecting agriculture first.”
Hickenlooper said the climate is clearly changing and farmers and ranchers need to be prioritized so they can grow the food people depend on.
“We need to come together as Coloradans, not Republicans or Democrats, and fight for the federal funding – not to make it easier for big farms and big ranches to survive this decline in their revenues,” he said. “We want to invest money in infrastructure that will help us take the water we have and get more crops, more livestock.”
Clark, who had been invited to speak about the Dolores River and recreation, said there hasn’t been a lot of recreation on the river this year because of the lack of water.
She said one of the Boating Advocates’ major programs is to take local youths out to places like the overlook and teach them where their water comes from and where it goes.
Many of them want to know why there isn’t more water in the river, Clark said.
“I think we need to take care of the dying river in addition to the economy and farming and ranching,” she said. “We all kind of have an obligation to achieve all of these things in a changing world.”
In an interview with KSJD and The Journal, Hickenlooper reiterated that ag producers need to be high on the list of priorities for the federal government.
“We’ve got to really prioritize, with the limited resources we have, help for farmers and ranchers so they can grow the food and the livestock and the products we depend on,” Hickenlooper said
He spoke of some of the agricultural products Colorado is famous for, such as Palisade peaches and Rocky Ford cantaloupes.
Hickenlooper, who is running for re-election this year, said that if Democrats are able to gain power in the midterm elections, their immediate priorities would be ending the Iran war and eliminating numerous tariffs that are raising costs for American consumers and ag producers.
“We’re not rebuilding our manufacturing” through tariffs, he said. “The benefit is mostly for friends of the President.”
Longer-term projects for Congress could be to get legislation passed on complex issues such as climate change and immigration.
Many undocumented workers, he said, have been here for 10 or 15 years, have not committed a crime, and provide needed labor for farmers and ranchers, who now have to face “the added instability of an unreliable workforce because of the federal government.”
“That’s why we need a new party, the Agriculture First Party,” he said.
