Farmers and ranchers in Colorado are facing some tough challenges this year. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Drought Monitor, about 9% of Colorado is experiencing extreme drought or worse, heading into mid March. With one of the worst snowpacks on record and persistently warm temperatures, Colorado is considering an early activation of its Drought Task Force, which pulls state agencies together to respond to drought conditions that are affecting agriculture, municipal water supplies, wildlife and recreation, while recommending emergency actions and declarations that will improve communication with the public and will help to facilitate allocation of resources. If dry conditions aren’t concerning enough though, both farmers and ranchers are facing high fertilizer and fuel prices as they begin to plan for planting crops and increasing forage production on pastures here in the Four Corners Region.
While war in the middle east is impacting the cost of fuel that farmers will need when they begin to till and plant crops, they are also watching the price of phosphate, urea, and anhydrous ammonia that are doubling and tripling in price. Josh Linville, vice president of fertilizer for StoneX, notes that the Strait of Hormuz accounts for nearly 25% of globally traded nitrogen fertilizer. He states that “We have three of the top 10 global urea exporters that sit in the Persian Gulf, three of the top 10 anhydrous exporters in the gulf, and one of the world’s top five phosphate exporters that is also in the region. He also points out that if the Strait continues to remain closed to safe passage, those tons just won’t matter anymore. They don’t exist until the Strait reopens. Prices for fertilizer jumped from $516 per metric ton on Friday February 27th up to $683 at the import hub of New Orleans on March 5th. Reuters News reported that prices could jump even higher if the Persian Gulf closure persists and shipments can't make it in time for spring planting. Because of a global grain glut, many farmers were already expecting to lose money on this year's crop, but now the outlook is especially gloomy for farmers who still need to buy spring fertilizer, and feel that they are in a very serious situation now. Linville stated that “Literally, this could not happen at a worse time of the year."
The Wallaces Farmer Magazine article, “Like corn? Thank Native Americans, the first corn breeders”, caught my attention recently. The piece points out that corn breeding by Native Americans in Mexico goes back 10,000 years. They started with teosinte, a grass that produces seeds that were nutritious but covered with a hard husk. Over the centuries, they continued to select for plants that provided more seeds and softer husks that became the predecessor of the corn we grow now. The plant was popular because it was well adapted to the soil and climate of central Mexico. About 5,000 years ago, these indigenous people migrated north to populate the a large area of the North American Continent, including the Four Corners Region, where the combination of corn, beans and squash were the main diet of the Ancestral Puebloans that inhabited much of the southwest U.S.
https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-life/how-native-americans-shaped-modern-corn-production
South Dakota politician, diplomat, and historian “George McGovern wrote, “I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
