Agriculture

Longmont’s Schlagel family has farmed sugar beets for four generations under shadow of Rocky Mountains

Paul Schlagel’s family was one of the many Volga German families who came to Colorado more than a century ago and grew the crop they knew: sugar beets. Their first sugar beet crop in northern Colorado was harvested in 1911. His father purchased the farm from his mother and began farming on the current farm in 1963. Next year will be his 50th crop.

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Rural “cowboy up” culture has led to high suicide rates. How can the state improve mental health in ag?

San Luis Valley cattle rancher George Whitten was halfway through a mental health workshop when he let himself tally up a figure he had never wanted to know — the number of people in his life who had died by suicide. 

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This Colorado rancher sees a world where conservation can turn a profit

Their hoofprints fan out in four directions but the elk that overwinter here have scattered. The snow is changing to ice and a brisk wind scours the ground. Maybe the gusts chased them off. Or a memory, stored deep in their DNA, of an elk caught in a barbed wire fence with a coyote eating it.

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Weld County Livestock Association to award $8,500 in college scholarships

The Weld County Livestock Association will be awarding the $1,500 Sharon and Gene Inloes Scholarship, the $1,500 Willie Burbach Memorial Scholarship, the $2,500 Boyd Collins Memorial Scholarship, and two additional $1,500 college scholarships for the 2024-2025 academic year.

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Demand for Colorado’s Ag in the Classroom creates increased funding need

The Colorado Agriculture in the Classroom program has experienced tremendous growth in demand from teachers wanting to include agriculture in their curriculum. So much so, there are currently 1,100 classrooms — over 23,000 students — signed up, creating the need for an additional $20,000 in funding to avoid turning away students.

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Colorado Senate Ag Committee introduces ‘Agriculture and Natural Resources Public Engagement Requirement’ bill

In a recent legislative committee meeting, the Colorado Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee discussed Senate Bill 24-026, a bill that proposes the renewal of the in-person public engagement requirement for members of the Parks and Wildlife Commission in the Department of Natural Resources, as well as the addition of the same requirement for members of the Agriculture Commission and the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

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