MCELMO CANYON — The apple orchard on Jude and Addie Schuenemeyer’s farm in a squiggle of a canyon in far southwest Colorado is a wild place. Turkeys gobble around on the hunt for bugs in native grasses that grow nearly as high as the gnarly limbs of the apple trees. Those trees are set hither […]
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government, Technology
How Colorado’s rural communities could benefit from $600 million in federal broadband grants
The far Western Colorado town of Dove Creek, population 724, became the first municipality in the state to benefit from the $600 million federal grant program to help build better rural broadband in agricultural communities. Utah-based Emery Telcom was awarded a $2.7 million grant, which will be used to provide gigabit broadband service to 494 […]
Posted inBusiness, News
A hemp green rush is remaking agriculture in Colorado — complete with get-rich CBD dreams and flimflam profiteers
DELTA COUNTY — On a sunny fall day at the tail end of harvest season, wagons piled high with what looks like bushy, green tumbleweeds are rolling in caravans past a dry, rattling cornfield, heading toward a new hemp-processing plant near Delta. These loads are piled high with hopes. Growers are banking on hemp to […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government
Why Colorado’s corn farmers are getting hurt by China’s soybean tariff
When China added a 25% tax on soybeans in retaliation to U.S. tariffs last year, Colorado’s farming community shrugged it off. Soybeans aren’t much of a crop here. But nationwide, large patches of Midwestern soybean farmland switched to corn. That, in turn, meant more corn would stay in the U.S., driving down prices for Yuma […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government
Electric-powered bikes are now allowed on BLM and National Park trails — and not everyone is happy about it
EAGLE — The cyclist climbing Boneyard zoomed up the steepest section of the singletrack trail with an effortless ease, passing a panting pedaler in a blink. Here they come. Electric bikes, propelled by both pedal and throttle, will be more common on Colorado’s Bureau of Land Management trails after an order issued by Interior Secretary […]
Posted inEducation, Health, News
How Colorado’s rural education network went from teaching home economics to fighting the opioid epidemic
CSU Extension agent Abby Weber covers a lot of wind-swept territory putting on workshops about rabbit and poultry care, sustainable living and cake decorating, and she also oversees shooting-safety classes, robotics challenges and dog-training courses for Bent County 4-H clubs. And now Weber and other extension agents are moving to the front lines in the […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Growth
Can rangeland apprenticeships stem the exodus of Colorado ranchers and keep America fed?
MOFFAT — On an early spring day in the hills west of Moffat, two ranchers walk through open pasture with two women less than half their age. An ecologist guides the group through miles of rangeland, too dry for sagebrush or trees, that stretches between them and the snow capped Sangre de Cristo mountains to […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Environment, News, Outdoors
How a small Colorado town fought the Japanese beetle and won
PALISADE — In 2003, Brant Harrison needed a project. The Palisade peach grower was part of an agricultural leadership program and needed something good. Around the same time, he attended a meeting hosted by Colorado State University about a new insect found in the area: Japanese beetles. They’d found a few in 2002. “The next […]
Posted inColoradans, Energy, Environment, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government
Interior Secretary Bernhardt came home to Colorado — and the swamp monsters were waiting for him in Vail
VAIL — Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is looking at every job in the Bureau of Land Management to determine two things: Is the role essential? And does it need to be based in Washington, D.C.? Once the newly confirmed secretary finishes answering those questions, he said, he can support the push to relocate the land […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Health, News
GMO food labels are coming. But with most products already using modified ingredients, battle lines have shifted.
While you were eating, some of the biggest controversies over genetically modified foods have largely been settled. At least nine out of 10 kernels of corn grown in Colorado are GMO, as are 98 percent of the sugar beets and much of the alfalfa, canola and other commodity foods. Modified potatoes that can better handle […]