Despite this week鈥檚 snow in the mountains and eastern plains, 2012 will go down as one of Colorado鈥檚 driest years on record.
A group of agricultural economists at Colorado State University want to know how the is impacting the state鈥檚 farmers and ranchers. James Pritchett is an Extension Specialist in farm and ranch management at CSU, and is heading up the called Telling the Story - Drought in Colorado.
You can find the agriculture . CSU is hoping at least 6,000 farmers and ranchers respond to the survey by Jan 1, 2013.
According to the , the entire state is suffering some form of drought -- ranging from moderate to exceptional.
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Interview Highlights
On what they鈥檙e hoping to learn from the survey:
鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to understand who鈥檚 been affected the most by the drought... For some folks this was a real production sort of activity, where they reduced the amount of yields that they had, or maybe they couldn鈥檛 crop as many acres; or maybe they changed their crop from being a crop they planned to harvest for grain instead of harvesting for forage. So we want to understand a little bit about how they responded to that drought, and what that meant for that bottom line.鈥�
On the 鈥榬ipple effect鈥� that drought can have outside farms and ranches:
鈥淩esiliency is really important to us. We want to understand how our farmers and ranchers will be impacted going forward. But also their rural communities - the communities they buy from, main street businesses - those folks will be affected too, because it鈥檚 the revenues that come to the farm or ranch that drive the purchases that come in the next season, and also promotes economic activity on the Main Street of those small towns.鈥�
On how the survey could inform future agriculture legislation:
鈥淎s we discuss what the next iteration of the Farm bill might look like we want to understand a little about what sorts of targeted crop insurance make sense, and what commodities make sense, and at what levels of assistance do we need to make sure we can avoid the valleys that come with this type of weather event.鈥�
