Does Your Horse Eat Hay???

This “Red Alert” pertains to Recommendations on the Boulder County Cropland Policy.

Public Meeting:  Thursday December 8, Longmont Conference Center, 1850 Industrial Circle, Longmont, 6pm.   The Board of County Commissioners will take public testimony. 

Now is the time to speak up!  We need as many horse people as possible to attend this meeting!

Horse Community Strategy Meeting:  Saturday, Dec. 3, Longmont Public Library,  409 Fourth Avenue, Longmont, 10am-noon.  We need to get organized.

For the past nine months, an official advisory panel (called CPAG, the Cropland Policy Advisory Group)consisting of three conventional farmers, two organic farmers, an organic dairy farmer, and three members of the public,  met and produced a remarkably balanced document outlining future agricultural policies for Boulder County Parks & Open Space (BCPOS) Croplands, including irrigated pasture lands and irrigated hay ground, throughout the County.  You may have read about this process with regard to the GMO (genetically-modified organisms) debate, and you probably thought it didn’t affect you.

However, at the eleventh hour, a very small but vocal citizens group – whose primary focus was against GMOs — also recommended that the only legitimate crops produced on BCPOS land should be organically grown food and fiber for local human consumption.  Horses obviously don’t fit that narrow definition.  Horses are, of course, included around the world in most other definitions of agriculture as livestock.  This group also recommended that horses be relegated to dead last in priority for Open Space purposes.

Last week two Boulder County advisory bodies (FAPC, the Food and Agriculture Policy Council, and POSAC, the Parks & Open Space Advisory Committee) deliberated less than 24 hours and made some unfortunate changes to the original CPAG recommendations to placate the so-called citizens group.

This week their versions of the Cropland Policy will go to the BOCC for consideration.  Next week (Dec. 8) is the public hearing. The final BOCC vote will take place in mid-December.

Specifically, several troublesome new clauses have been inserted in the Draft Cropland Policy that would:

1)   force all hay producers on Boulder County Open Space (comprising almost 750 farms) to sell their hay first to everyone with any kind of livestock OTHER than horses — llamas, sheep, goats, pigs, cows, chickens, etc.  and only after them all, to horses.

2)   force all BCPOS farmers to give grazing priority to all other livestock, rather  than horses.

3)    force the County to lease future Open Space farms preferentially to people with all other livestock, or to raise food crops, rather than horses.

4)    force all farmers to produce only no-herbicide, no-pesticide, no-fertilizer crops — basically, go organic and go broke.

5)   force all future decisionmakers to place all trails only “on the edge” of open space parcels – which would be undesirable for all types of trail users, to say the least, and unsafe for equestrians.

These “fine points” have been lost in the GMO discussions.

If passed, this policy will be economically disastrous for all farmers in Boulder County, and for many horse people (including boarding facilities) who buy their hay from Open Space lessees.  If passed, the amended document will result in a dramatic decrease in the amount of forage and hay available for horses in Boulder County (creating hardship on farmers and higher prices for feed and boarding everywhere); it will result in the proliferation of weeds and other pests on Open Space and its neighbors; and it will result in fewer and lower-quality trails for all.

BCHA is not taking a separate position on GMO crops at this time.  We do take exception to the arbitrary trails-only-on-the-edge clause.  Our position on the Cropland Policy as a whole, however, is:  Support the CPAG recommendations.

If your horse eats hay, or if you are a farmer in Boulder County, or if you are a neighbor to a farmer, or if you are a trail rider…

THIS SITUATION NEEDS YOUR FULL ATTENTION!

Read the documents for yourself here: Cropland Policy

For more info or to give us your feedback, go to info@boulderhorse.org.

You can bet that the organic, environmentalist, no-tech, no-horse, no-trail crowd will be out in force.  Therefore, WE NEED YOU to attend the meeting on December 8 and speak on behalf of horses, farmers, and trails! Please plan to arrive early to sign up to speak.

Support horses in Boulder County!  Support BCHA’s position.  Support the original CPAG Recommendations.

(If you absolutely can’t make it to the public meeting, please call the Boulder County Commissioners at 303-441-3500 or email them ASAP at commissioners@bouldercounty.org)