New buildings and growth pose challenges for local farmers

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. ( KREX ) – The Grand Valley has been a patchwork of farms and ranches for more than a century, but times are changing rapidly. Janie VanWinkle points out that “Labor is a struggle (and) finding people to do the work.”

Local ranching advocate VanWinkle recently won a one-and-a-half-year Agriwest fellowship. Along with the Business Incubator and Economic Recovery Corp, she helped host the area’s first Agriwest Council discussion, tackling issues like drought, declining farmland and higher production costs.

VanWinkle voiced the concerns about “supply chain issues and how do we get parts for equipment when they break down? How do we get our product from the field to the fork?”

Ranch realtor Mandy Rush states that undoubtedly, developments are slowly encroaching on more farm and ranch lands that once sustained the West.

Mandy Rush says, “In Grand Junction city, even out in the city of Fruita, Palisade, as those areas become more populated in demand for development terms, it seems like land once being cultivated is now seen as the highest and best use for development.”

Rush points out that developers have been buying up Grand Valley farmland for more than a decade and are just waiting for the right time to develop.

“So we are seeing more parcels being subdivided for residential demand growth,” said Rush.

New developments mean more traffic, and Van Winkle says newcomers who surround her farm aren’t always used to sharing the road.

“I like to say they love their local farmer until they follow me down the road with a 16-foot disc behind a John Deere tractor because I’m slowing traffic, I’m in the way for a mile or two. That’s frustrating for folks,” said VanWinkle.

“With no turning back,” Van Winkle says, “compromise is the only way forward. And that’s an important piece for moving here to understand why this area is the way that it is. Not just producing food here, but we export a lot of food around Colorado, around our nation and frankly globally,” said VanWinkle.

The Agriwest Council will harness that momentum to help farmers and ranchers navigate growing opportunities in tourism, technology and distribution.

“I mean, this is an incredible landscape, and part of what makes it so incredible is because of the agriculture producers that have been here for generations,” VanWinkle emphasized.

By turning challenges into opportunities, they’ll remain fixtures in this landscape for generations to come.

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