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From Colorado to California wolf conflicts fuel push to delist
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Grand View Outdoors, Approved, National

From Colorado to California wolf conflicts fuel push to delist

By RMEF Staff | Grand View Outdoors As new wolf packs kill livestock in Colorado and California, support grows to delist wolves nationwide. Wolves released by way of a controversial ballot initiative in Colorado, opposed by RMEF, have experienced a rocky start, creating headaches for wildlife managers and ranchers alike and seeing mortalities in their ranks.  In late August 2024, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) announced it was trying to capture and relocate wolves from the Copper Creek wolf pack, which formed from animals CPW released in Grand County in December 2023. Months later, the pack had killed nine cattle and an equal number of sheep.   In early September 2024, CPW announced that wildlife managers had captured the two adult wolves and four pups that ma...
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CDC warns of flesh-eating parasite threat as travel spreads risk
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The Western Journal, Approved, National

CDC warns of flesh-eating parasite threat as travel spreads risk

By Richard Moorhead | The Western Journal Even the name is grisly — but the behavior is even worse. The parasite known as the New World screwworm, a type of fly larva that feeds on living flesh and can be fatal to its victims, has been confirmed as infecting a human in the United States, according to Reuters. While human infections are vanishingly rare, the discovery has the nation’s beef industry on edge. As the Associated Press reported, screwworms are a species of fly with females that seek out orifices of living mammals to lay their eggs — such as the eyes, nose, mouth, or bleeding open wounds. When the eggs hatch, the larvae then bury into the flesh of the host organism with sharp teeth that burrow in like screws — hence the name. PLEASE READ THE COMPL...
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Colorado farmers and cities face tough choices in looming water showdown
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado farmers and cities face tough choices in looming water showdown

By Sharon Sullivan | The Colorado Sun STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Colorado water officials announced Wednesday a rough plan to figure out how the state would handle an unwelcome specter in the Colorado River Basin: forced water cuts. Mandatory water cuts are possible under the 103-year-old Colorado River Compact in certain circumstances, mainly if the river’s 10-year flow falls too low. It’s a possibility that is one or two “bad years” away, some experts say.  Colorado, however, does not have a clearly defined plan, or regulations, for how exactly it would handle such forced water cuts. It’s time to start preparing, according to state engineer Jason Ullmann, Colorado’s top water cop. Over the years, Coloradans on both sides of the Continental Divide have asked about these “compact...
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Potholes and Broken Promises: Colorado’s Working Class Deserves Better
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Potholes and Broken Promises: Colorado’s Working Class Deserves Better

By Bobbie Daniel | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Drive a mile in Colorado and you’ll know the truth: our roads are crumbling, and so is the promise that the government would take care of this basic function. Families scrape by to keep their cars running while the same political elite who’ve run this state for twenty years pour billions into pet projects and leave working people holding the bill. Colorado’s highways were built the way a farm is built — ditch by ditch, fence by fence, harvest by harvest. Generations of Coloradans invested billions so our economy could function. From rural to urban, our families could get where they needed to go. But now the ditch and fence are broken, and instead of repairing it, the political class is off buying themselves a BMW. Nice ride, m...
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Colorado’s rural-urban divide revealed: 10 takeaways from the Rural Reckoning series
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The Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado’s rural-urban divide revealed: 10 takeaways from the Rural Reckoning series

By Vince Bzdek | The Gazette How bad is the rural/urban divide in Colorado? That’s what a team of reporters at Colorado Politics and The Colorado Network, our statewide collective of freelancers, set out to measure and understand. Through extensive interviews, data analysis and community voices, our journalists have documented the yawning gap between what rural areas contribute to the state through agriculture, energy production, tourism and outdoor recreation, and the attention, money and support they receive in the halls of the Capitol and the governor’s mansion. That gap has resulted in a host of unaddressed problems unique to rural Colorado. Our reporters also have found that culturally, the polarization between rural and urban has deepened so much that when it comes to pol...
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High steaks for Independence Day: Colorado beef costs top national average
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Colorado Hometown Weekly, Approved, State

High steaks for Independence Day: Colorado beef costs top national average

By Miguel Otarola | Colorado Hometown Weekly The price of meat ahead of the Fourth of July weekend will be higher in Colorado supermarkets than in the rest of the country, according to an annual industry survey. Produced by the American Farm Bureau Federation, an agriculture lobbying group, the survey found that ground beef and pork chops were more expensive — and chicken breasts were cheaper — in Colorado than in other states. State and national economists attribute the surge in beef prices to fewer cows nationwide, a result of more than a decade of drought that has withered food supplies. “When that number shrinks, you have less calves being born to go down the supply chain and prices rise,” said Nathan DeLay, assistant professor of livestock economics at Colorado S...
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Gabel: Why I have no beef with President Trump’s beef tariffs
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Approved, coloradopolitics.com, Commentary, National

Gabel: Why I have no beef with President Trump’s beef tariffs

By Rachel Gabel | Commentary, Colorado Politics President Donald Trump’s tariffs should be on the radar of every agriculture producer in the U.S. Our country is not only the top producer of beef at 12.1 million metric tons annually, but also the top importer of beef, consuming 12.7 metric tons annually. There are hundreds of other ag commodities that rely on trade, of course, but beef is on my radar. One of the countries at the top of the beef tariff list is Australia, which is one of the countries that imports no American beef, a result of a 2003 restriction following a North American outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. Our country, however, imports $4.8 billion in Australian beef annually, making the U.S. Australia’s largest beef market. Japan, Mexi...
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Will Colorado Springs’ growth come at cost to Eastern Plains? Farmers say yes.
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State, The Colorado Sun

Will Colorado Springs’ growth come at cost to Eastern Plains? Farmers say yes.

By Shannon Mullane | The Colorado Sun The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District stepped up its fight against a massive Colorado Springs annexation, citing concerns that water from farms in southeastern Colorado would be used to supply 6,500 new homes and businesses to support them. The district, which serves Pueblo, Crowley, Bent, Otero and Prowers counties, passed a resolution outlining the threats its communities face when Colorado Springs expands.  Big cities in Colorado regularly turn to agricultural water to get more water to satisfy their growth. For farmers and ranchers, selling or leasing water to cities can mean drying up farmland, laying off workers or compromising their way of life. A recently approved annexation plan, the Karman Line project n...
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How Colorado’s first agriculture-focused charter school is giving students tools for life
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Approved, Local, The Colorado Sun

How Colorado’s first agriculture-focused charter school is giving students tools for life

By Tracy Ross | The Colorado Sun The last thing the rancher from Arkansas wandering through the cattle barn at the National Western Stock Show thought he’d encounter was the group of kids surrounding him dressed in the un-ranchiest clothing. You could see it in his face.  So it took a minute for 10th grader Kailey Seymour, in a flannel, jeans and sneakers, to gather the courage to ask if he’d let them interview him while her classmate Gianni Montoya, in a fuzzy black-and-white Raiders poncho that grazed his knees, recorded the conversation on a phone.  Lucky for them — Philip Moon of Moon Herefords in Harrison, Arkansas — obliged. He listened to Seymour’s question — Do you sell your cattle at stock shows? — and gave a thoughtful answer. He said he raises cow-ca...
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Beef industry should enjoy profitable 2025, analyst tells Farm Show audience
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Akron News-Reporter, Approved, Local

Beef industry should enjoy profitable 2025, analyst tells Farm Show audience

By Jeff Rice | Akron News Reporter Don’t look for retail beef prices to come down any time soon. That was part of the message from an industry expert Tuesday at the Colorado Farm Show in Greeley. Tyler Cozzens, an economist for Livestock Marketing Information Center in Lakewood, told a small crowd of about 70 people that cattle prices finished strong in 2024 and look to remain strong throughout the coming year. That translates into higher prices in the local supermarket. “Retail beef prices will stay high, but demand is very strong,” Cozzens said. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE AKRON NEWS REPORTER
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