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Farmers in the Great Plains may abandon 85% of their wheat acres, the shift of land from agricultural production to urban uses could impact future food security, and the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a California law banning the sale of pork from pigs that were raised in tightly confined spaces was lawful.

The Montezuma-Cortez School District will hold its next school board meeting on Tuesday at 6 p.m. It’s expected that the recent conflict around staff changes in the district will be discussed during the public comment portion of the meeting. On April 20, students at the high school held a walk out in response to the dismissal of the school principal by Superintendent Tom Burris. Staff and students allege that Burris has a history of mistreatment of students in the district. According to Jake Myers, who was in 7th grade at the time, in August of 1998, then-Vice Principal Burris instructed him to sit on a large bucket in the multipurpose fields until the end of the school day as punishment for being disruptive in a band class.

On Tuesday evening, the Montezuma-Cortez School District held a board meeting where parents and educators voiced concerns on staffing upheaval and a subsequent student protest. Though the latest conflict in the district wasn’t officially on the agenda, about 25 people showed up to the meeting. Jarrett Watkins, a teacher at the high school who spoke at the meeting, says many other educators and staff are afraid to openly discuss the concerns they have around the dismissal of their principal.

Next week, elections for the Empire Electric Association’s two open board seats will wrap up. Kent Lindsay is a resident of Cortez, and an incumbent running against Elise Goggin for the open board of directors seat in the utility cooperative’s fifth district, which includes parts of Cortez and Towaoc. Lindsay says he and the rest of the board have helped add three new solar energy fields to the area, which he says could have an impact on utility rates for the community. And Colorado is taking new steps to expand treatment for eating disorders. Lieutenant Governor Dianne Primavera signed two bills into law Tuesday.

Drought in the Southwest sees big improvement, farmland prices remain stagnant, and cattle producers are optimistic about building herds back after recent setbacks.

U.S. farm exports are set to decrease by 8% this year, climatologists are suggesting that the U.S. will see a shift from La Nina to El Nino conditions this summer, almost one-third of winter wheat acreage could be abandoned this year, prices for beef for grilling will be higher this summer, and a new business is using mini and micro burros to serve drinks at parties and other events.

Last month, Navajo Nation officials launched Operation Rainbow Bridge, a program designed to help Navajo citizens caught up in fraudulent rehab centers that cheated Arizona’s Medicaid program millions of dollars by preying on and scamming Indigenous people. Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch says that in Navajo culture, a rainbow is used to indicate movement from place to place, hence the operation’s name. Governor Katie Hobbs announced in May that the state would take action against over 100 of these predatory sober living homes, which have sent recruiters to tribal communities across the western United States, targeting the unhoused and those struggling with substance abuse, and taking them to facilities in the Phoenix area. And the Colorado Board of Education informally chose the state’s new education commissioner last week.

The Southwest is seeing an easing of drought conditions but parts of the country are still dry, farmers taking irrigation water from the Ogallala Aquifer may need a different approach, how the 1930s Dust Bowl affected soil conservation, and a look at the downside of avocado production.

Last week, the Upper Colorado River Commission held a virtual meeting on developments concerning a controversial government program designed to pay water users to curb their use. The System Conservation Pilot Program, or SCPP, is intended to help boost flagging water levels in Lake Powell. Some farmers and irrigators in southwest Colorado – and in other Upper Basin states like New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – had reservations about applying, concerned about deliberately not farming their land in order to save water. Chuck Cullom, the executive director of the commission, says the process leading up to this iteration of the SCPP was rushed, something he says the commission takes responsibility for. And a set of bills that would expand treatment for people with eating disorders passed the state Senate Tuesday.

A farmer in southwest Colorado is helping administer a federal water conservation program that pays water users in the Upper Basin to curb their use. Greg Vlaming, who’s working to promote the System Conservation Pilot Program to farmers in the Dolores Water Conservancy District area, says those in his region who opt in won’t necessarily be forced to not farm their land in order to save water, and, therefore, earn money from the program. Instead, farmers in the drought-stricken area have a different option: plant crops that need less water in order to conserve, like “forage crops,” which are plants destined to be used as feed for animals.