The Ranch Post

On the front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning, “grain companies prices soar as global food crisis mounts.” Farmers are making incredible profits since many grains and vegetables are in high demand. “The crisis stems from a combination of heightened demand for food from fast-growing developing countries like China and India, low grain stockpiles caused by bad weather, rising fuel prices and the increasing amount of land used to grow crops for ethanol and other biofuels rather than food.” Grain companies have responded by saying they will put the extra money towards technology development that will increase productivity.

NBC’s Today Show kicked off its annual “Where in the world is Matt Lauer?” segment this week, and Lauer started off in the majestic city of Buenos Aires. The Patagonia region was featured as part of Monday’s show, showcasing the history, estancia culture, fly-fishing and recreation of the area.

Photo: Estancia El Palenque, an estancia (ranch) for sale in Patagonia.

The Denver Business Journal is reporting that corn farmers in Yuma County are looking to a $71 million water project to sustain their businesses.

Colorado is obligated to send a certain amount of water from the Republican River downstream to Nebraska and Kansas, and many farmers /ranchers are unable to properly irrigate their fields under that requirement. If ranchers take more water than allowed, neighboring states can take their case to the Supreme Court and shut down all wells in the Republican River Basin. If ranchers can’t access water, they can’t grow corn, which forces them to turn to “non-irrigated crops or grazed cattle,” decreasing the value of the land by as “much as 80 percent.”

Read more about the proposed water project in today’s Denver Business Journal.

The Conservation Fund, Colorado Open Lands, Nature Conservancy, Trust For Public Lands and Colorado Conservation Trust have recently joined forces to form a new coalition, named Keep it Colorado. “The group will focus attention and preservation efforts on 700,000 acres of land in 24 different regions of the state, from the San Juan Valley to the Eastern Plains,” and are proposing a $800 million plan to accomplish just that. Read about how the coalition expects to fund the plan in today’s Rocky Mountain News.

Last month the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set a new national limit for smog. “Under the EPA’s old limit, set in 1997, air was unhealthy if it had an average of more than 84 parts per billion of ozone. The new limit is 75 parts per billion or more.”

According to an analysis performed by USA Today, “smaller metropolitan areas” as well as wilderness areas — “are the most likely to be labeled as smoggy” under the new limit. So much so, that the number of small counties (with less than 250,000 people) in violation of the limit would change “from five to 47.” Read about the analysis in today’s USA Today.

In honor of Earth Day (which is today), a report on smog related deaths will be released by the National Research Council.  Stay tuned…

Fishing is expected to be better in 2008 than the last few years in Southeast Colorado according to the Colorado Division of Wildlife. In a recent Denver Post article, DOW Fisheries biologist, Jim Ramsay, says that there will be “greatly improved prospects where water is more plentiful.”

To read highlights of the recent CDOW forecast report in the Denver Post article, click here.

To read the full CDOW 2008 Fishing Forecast for the Southeast region of Colorado, click here. (The report includes a 2008 fishing forecast for South Park as well.)

Everyone’s heard the buzz in the news - is the U.S. in a recession? While MRG is not at liberty to say if that is 100 percent true or not, we do feel it’s safe to say that there are more reliable and stable investments out there than others.

In the LANDFLIP Blog this week, Curtis Seltzer, a land consultant and author, offers his opinion on why Americans invest heavily in the stock market, and explains that the real estate market, particularly land, is a sound and lucrative investment in the current market. To read the article, click here.

The Denver Post has published a feature story on visiting Yellowstone National Park in the winter. It steps you through available lodging, road conditions, open park entrances, winter activities and dining. Check it out! It might be right up your alley.

The Casper Star-Tribune is reporting that hunters and anglers are getting worried about the effect global warming is having on wildlife and fish habitat.

The Wildlife Management Institute released a report based on work done by nine fishing and hunting organizations, providing “a glimpse of their concerns.” Highlights include:

• “Prairie pothole regions essential for waterfowl could lose 90 percent of their wetlands, causing a 69 percent decline in North America’s breeding ducks.
• About 42 percent of the trout and salmon habitat could be lost by the end of the century, with bull trout virtually disappearing in the high mountain West and wild trout from lower Appalachian streams.
• The number of pronghorn antelope, elk and mule deer will dwindle as rising temperatures allow trees and shrubs to overwhelm the sagebrush ecosystem in the West.
• Populations of bobwhite quail will shrink in the Deep South as summertime drought and higher temperatures disrupt their breeding cycles. And drier conditions in fall and early spring will threaten quail in the Southwest.
• While an increase in water temperature and other change could benefit some salt water marine species, sea-level rise would destroy thousands of acres of coastal salt marshes and seagrass that are home to larval and juvenile game fish.”

The American Farm Bureau is reporting the results of a Department of Agriculture survey of farmer’s planting intentions for 2008. According to the report, “U.S. farmers are expected to plant about 18 percent more soybeans this year, while their corn acreage could decline by about 8 percent from a year ago.” The report is significant, as the day the report was released, a bushel of corn was “up about 10 cents to 15 cents.”

In related news, the New York Times elaborates on our April 1 blog on how ranchers and farmers are taking their land out of the government’s Conservation Reserve Program, and farming that land to cash in on the agricultural boom. “Environmental and hunting groups are warning that years of progress could soon be lost, particularly with the native prairie in the Upper Midwest. But a broad coalition of baking, poultry, snack food, ethanol and livestock groups say bigger harvests are a more important priority than habitats for waterfowl and other wildlife.” According to the article, as many acres as “are in Rhode Island and Delaware combined” were converted from conserved to cultivated land last fall alone.