November 6, 2010 Silver Creek High School

Part 1: Keynote address

Cindy Domenico: Good afternoon everyone, we are so happy that you are all here today.

Want to say welcome to all of you. And also we are honored to have our panel, who will

be speaking with us and are here to help us kick off dialogue about our cropland policy.

Iím one of the County Commissioners. My colleague Ben Pearlman is here; Will Toor will join

us a little bit later. We just have a couple things weíd like to share with you before

we start the program. For those of you who have been around Boulder County for a long

time, you know that agriculture is a very important industry here in the county, and

there is a long history of agriculture here in Boulder County. The two biggest industries

were farming and mining, and particularly my family, we came here because of all the

farming and mining in the early 1880s for farming. And that farmland, for us, is near

Lafayette, was an 80 acre farm, was a diversified operation for many years, and about three

families went through some trying times in the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s. Itís still

a farm at the moment, but as you know itís very difficult to keep farmland in the Front

Range. And so, the mining aspect is a little bit different, there was a lot of coal mining

and that sort of thingÖ the two industries went hand in hand over many years, until relatively

recently, and as we looked at agricultural land across the county and over the years,

we noticed that is was disappearing, just like every other place in the Front Range.

And 30 years ago, a group of people put together some great thoughts; they created a Comprehensive

Plan that was focused on preserving at least some of that agricultural land, and preserving

the agricultural lifestyle, so that we donít completely lose our heritage, that this county

grew from. That Comprehensive Plan helped guide the way for us to preserve quite a few

acres here in Boulder County. Actually 25,000 acres, that are currently farmed by small

farmers and ranchers. And just as a (there we goÖ maybe) just as a way to understand

what 25,000 acres looks like, itís around 40 square miles, thatís approximately the

size. Thatís a lot of acreage. And of course, as you know, that land helps buffer our cities,

it helps keep our towns and municipalities independent from one another, it contributes

to the quality of life here in Boulder County in huge ways; makes a huge difference. So

we know weíre on the right track with that Comprehensive Plan, with the open space strategies

that we have; putting our efforts into preserving farmland. And certainly in preserving the

agricultural way of life.

2:50 But as we look at those 25,000 acres, particularly

in regard to some discussions that happened last year, we realize that we need to talk

about the cropland policies and strategies that we want to have in place in Boulder County

going into the future. How should those 25,000 acres of farmland be farmed? And last year,

a very long discussion happened around sugarbeets, what kind of sugarbeets should be grown, and

what it means if you donít grow them or if you do grow them. And so that has led us to

looking at a framework need for a cropland policy, that is why we are creating a cropland

policy advisory committee, to help us work through the process. That group will examine

all the issues and lay out

the framework for how decisions will be made in the future around our cropland usage in

the open space acres that we have. And weíre excited to kick off the dialogue, have a long

discussion about it; it was one of the most challenging hearings I think weíve ever been

in, certainly for me. I had been in the office for about two years before we jumped into

this discussion, and it looks into about every aspect of human life into the discussion that

you could think of, and some of you have probably already thought about that. But thatís part

of why weíre here today, to start talking about what that framework should look like,

and weíre very happy that youíre here to share in the dialogue.

Ben Pearlman: And Iíll just add, that I think it goes without saying, that food is important

to all of us, as are our landscapes, the quality of our environment, and this set of discussions

concerns all of that, and weíre lucky enough to be in a position in Boulder County where

we have over the last couple of decades, preserved this 25,000 acres of land and we have the

opportunity to decide how itís going to be managed. And I think thatís something thatís

very different than most communities across the Front Range, and I think weíre very lucky

to be in this position. Nonetheless, it is a challenging set of issues, and our goal,

as a county, is to come up with a path towards sustainable agriculture for the county. We

need to have these agricultural lands be productive on into the future, and not just for the values

that they provide for wildlife on the edges and the value for buffering between communities,

but our food. We believe that local food is going to a tremendous part of the future in

Boulder County. People want to be able to consume, eat food that is grown locally and

healthfully, and I think itís our obligation to try to work towards that as fast as we

possibly can. At a minimum, that means a few things. First, it means a commitment to continue

funding the open space program, of the filling out the gaps within our agricultural lands,

it means looking at our agricultural infrastructure, which always needs additional funding as far

as I can tell from our agricultural managers, but thatís everything from the ditches and

flumes and center pivot irrigation systems that allow the water to flow because again,

in the arid west, irrigation is tremendously important. Itís also processing facilities,

and other ways for farmers to add value to the crops that they grow, and I think we have

a lot of work to do on that as well. Itís also finding ways to allow farmers to grow

more organic crops on Boulder County open space lands, itís trying to grow farmers

themselves. We have some programs in place, and weíre working very hard to try to teach

farmers what they need to know in order to run these small farms, market farms, and be

successful at it. And then, of course, we need to do what we can as we manage these

lands to make available those opportunities to be able to lease out small parcels of land

that have the available water rights so that people can create something remarkable on

those landscapes. So, I think itís one of the most exciting things we do; I think weíre

very lucky to be in this position; weíre also very lucky that just a couple days ago

we had another open space ballot measure pass, by a very narrow margin, but this means that

we will have resources going into the future to be able to bolster and invest in our agricultural

infrastructure and in these lands. And so my thanks go out to the voters of Boulder

County and we appreciate their support in what has been a very tough last couple of

years in the local economy. Weíre very fortunate. Well with that said, we have some great people

to hear from; I think this, what weíre doing today, and what weíve been doing over the

last number of years, is I think, the last thing I wanted to mention, which is the engagement

of the public in how we manage our lands is tremendously important and weíre deeply grateful

to you for being here today. This a joint project, itís a community project, these

are all of our lands and how we manage them matters to all of us, so weíre just glad

that weíre going to have these kinds of discussions, and have a citizen advisory board for the

cropland policy to work with staff on developing that, and this is kicking that off, so thanks

to everyone for being here today. Back to David. (applause)

8:12 Well first let me say thanks to the Commissioners

for showing up today and kicking us off, I appreciate that, and then I want to say welcome

to all of you that have given up a beautiful Saturday afternoon in November here in Colorado,

to come here and help us talk about sustainable agriculture here in Boulder County. My name

is David Bell, Iím the agricultural resource manager for Boulder County Parks and Open

Space. And because we have such a great group of speakers here, I donít want to take too

much time, but I think as I heard, even our commissioners talking about some of the terms

that we throw around as far as open space, and organic farming, and some of the history

weíve had here, I just want to ask, how many people have not been part of this conversation

before this forum? So thatís pretty impressive. So, like I said, I want to take a few minutes

to kind of put this forum into context of what weíre trying to accomplish, and also

kind of put the agricultural program in context of Parks and Open Space, because a lot of

times people think about open space programs, theyíre not thinking about agriculture, so

something that is unique, and Boulder County again in leading the way in that. So Boulder

County protects around 95,000 acres through the open space program. 35,000 of that is

through conservation easements. Conservation easements are a program that allows the county

to purchase the development rights of a property. And if you think of a property as being a

bundle of sticks, you can pull out individual sticks from that bundle. You can sell your

mineral rights, you can sell your water rights, you can also sell your development rights.

So the county has leveraged some of its funds by buying just those development rights, and

allowing the family farmers to keep those grounds, and manage them the way they have

throughout their familiesí history. Again, protecting the development of those lands,

because development is held by the citizens of Boulder County. The remaining 65,000 acres

are called ìfee simpleî propertries. This is property that the county has gone out and

found willing sellers, who wanted to negotiate with the county to sell their properties at

fair market value, and then once that happens, we as a county take on that property, and

the full management of that property. Of those 60,000 acres, 25,000 acres were purchased

for agricultural values. As a staff, we donít have the time, the resources, the talent,

to go out and keep those lands in productions, so because of that, we partner with local

farmers and ranchers to make sure these lands stay productive over time. We call these farmers

and ranchers our ìpartners in conservation,î and these individuals lease the land that

produces a diversified variety of crops for our local markets. They range from barley

and beans, to kale and corn. And not only do these farmers and ranchers help maintain

these lands, but the lease revenues go right back into the open space program. In addition

to that, these families farms put right back into the community. These family farms not

only purchase their seeds, their crops, insurance, their fertilizers from local dealers, they

also purchase food, school supplies and clothes, right here in Boulder County, so that these

family farms generate revenue right here in Boulder County as well. While we recognize

the importance of our farmers and tenants on open space, we also recognize that these

are public lands, and we as stewards of public lands are accountable to the public as well.

So, this is where it puts us to day as part of this cropland policy. The Department is

in the process of creating this policy which will help us make management decisions that

reflect the public values and sentiments of the public, while assuring economic sustainability

of agricultural operations, and respecting and enhancing the environmental systems for

the foundation of agriculture. This forum is the third in our engagement of the public

in this conversation. So again for those of you that this is your first time, weíve also

reached out and weíve had an open house at the Boulder County Fairgrounds, where the

public has had the opportunity to talk with staff, to talk with farmers about what ranching

and farming is like in Boulder County. From then we went ahead and we scheduled tours

out in the field. We heard from people that they wanted to get out and see these lands,

they wanted to hear from these farmers and ranchers what it was really like out there.

So we put together a tour. On our first tour, we rented a bus, we had 50 people, we went

out, we looked at a livestock operation, a row crop operation, and a vegetable operation. Those 50 people had

a wonderful time. Staff had a wonderful time. I just know when I got done with those tours,

you want to get back out again because it was, I think, a great experience. By the second

tour, we had over 100 people, by the third tour we had over 200 and some people signed

up for this, and again by the fourth, we had the public out there and it allowed over 400

people to see Boulder County agriculture on open space. The reaction that I saw from the

public was just amazing. It took people back to their childhood with being on farms, it

took people that had never been out in a field to see a sugarbeet or corn; the opportunity

to get their hands on the products and walk the fields, and again, I think talking to

the farmers was a huge part of that too. This now again is this third piece of this conversation,

engaging the public in this conversation, about how we manage our public lands for the

future. One of the things I want to be sure we are clear