Drought-linked crop losses seen

50-75 percent drop in wheat, alfalfa expected

Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 17, 2006 at midnight

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Colorado agricultural counties expect a 50-75 percent reduction in wheat and alfalfa harvests this year because of drought, high winds and heat.

The grim assessment by the Federal Farm Services Agency led to Gov. Bill Owens' request this week for federal disaster assistance for 25 Colorado counties, bringing the total number of counties up for emergency help this year to 28.

In May the governor sought the designation for Morgan, Adams and Weld counties, after 440 irrigation wells were shut down because they were not in compliance with a new state law.

Extremely dry weather since April has left farmers in southern Colorado and on the eastern Plains struggling to irrigate their crops. The situation isn't as dire as in 2002, though, when the governor declared the state - all 64 counties - a drought disaster area.

Dan Hopkins, Owens' spokesman, said the governor has asked for disaster designations for counties every year since 1999.

The designation qualifies farmers and ranchers for low-interest loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and and for some income tax relief.

"The significance here is that the drought has persisted since 1999," Hopkins said. "The point being that we haven't seen an end to the drought."

State officials said it would take at least six to eight weeks to determine whether the emergency status would be approved.

Jim Miller, policy director for the Colorado Department of Agriculture, said the hot weather and high winds that have prevailed during the past two months may mean 2006 will be the second-worst for agriculture since 2002.

"It's got to be close," Miller said. "We've been hoping things would break. And they have broken, but not in the right direction.

"There doesn't seem to be much relief on the horizon," he said.

Miller said agricultural counties are expecting at least a 50 percent reduction in wheat crops, among others. In some areas, crop losses may be as high as 75 percent.

Miller and the Federal Farm Services Agency declined to release the damage assessment reports.

Skylar Loeffler, a Weld County farmer, said her family expected to lose at least half its alfalfa crop this year.

"It's going to be an awful year out here," said Loeffler, who farms with her husband southeast of La Salle.

Loeffler is one of hundreds of farmers whose wells were shut down May 5 because they could not meet the requirements of a new state law governing well operations.

Her farm's surface water supplies are also much lower than expected because the dry weather has sapped much of the water they had expected to get from their surface rights in the South Platte.

Flows in the river, which covers the metro area and the Northern Front Range, are roughly half of what they were forecast to be as recently as February.

And in the Arkansas River Basin, flows have fallen from a projected 112 percent of average to just 70 percent in the same time frame, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

At the same time Colorado has re-emerged as a hot spot on the U.S. Drought Monitor. The monitor indicates that all of the state has re-entered a drought classification, with the entire Front Range identified as being either severely or extremely dry.

smithj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5474

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