Larimer's Farm Service Agency office could close

By Steven Olson
Correspondent

Larimer County agricultural enterprises do not want to lose their local Farm Service Agency office, which could soon consolidate with the office in Weld County.

In September, they attended Larimer County Commissioner Kathay Rennels' meeting with constituents at the T-Bar Inn in Wellington and asked what could be done. Sandra Turk, who farms with her husband, Steve, north of Wellington, does not really care for the consolidation and wanted Rennels' advice.

Rennels' answer: Write Colorado's representatives in Congress. The FSA is an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Larimer County has no power over the consolidation with Weld County, which would make it one of the 10 biggest such offices in the country.

Turk is one of a growing number of farmers who are afraid service will suffer through the move. In the past, farmers in Larimer County who needed to deal with the FSA just walked in the door. If Larimer consolidates with Weld, they will have to make appointments in Greeley. Or put it this way, they would be wise to make one unless they want to dwell at the back of the line.

"On any given day, you could be looking at a wait of two to three hours," said Wayne Rieger, the Larimer County executive director of FSA, who is currently sharing management of the Weld County FSA facility. "I am not saying if you come in, you'll necessarily be waiting for two or three hours. What I am saying is that we'll have to wait on the people who have kept their appointments first. You can't expect the same level of service to the walk-in customers."

The Weld County office is huge already. Rieger said it serves about 6,000 producers. That compares with 2,000 producers in Larimer County.

FSA may be unknown to a lot of people, but it is not unknown to farmers, Rieger said. The office helps with information on disasters like drought, but it also helps farmers with issues like conservation and price supports. Farmers sign up for farm programs there and report their acreages.

Turk said she is worried the staffing is going to suffer. The Greeley office, Rieger said, has 10 employees and the plan is that the three in the Larimer County office would join them. Still, Turk wondered if that was going to be enough.

She noted that Weld County is "having a hell of a time servicing their own people," let alone dealing with Larimer County producers, too.

Rennels said the consolidation makes sense to her because farmers already do most of their business in Greeley and because farming is dwindling in Larimer County.

Just the idea of a farm is changing, Rennels said. "When I was growing up, farms were about the size of an entire section (640 acres)," she said. "Now farms are something like three to five acres, and they're growing things like garlic or lavender. They are still producing and everything, but they're smaller."

Rieger said, however, while the number of farms has decreased in Larimer County, it hasn't been by that much.

"People drive up and down the interstate and see all these housing developments going up, and they assume it's that way in the entire county and it's not," he said. "Ten years ago we had about 140,000 acres in this county devoted to agricultural production. Now we have 120,000 acres."

The Larimer County office is not the only one the USDA has singled out to be closed in Colorado. Others would be in El Paso, Rio Grande, Bent and Conejos counties.

The possibility has bothered more people than Turk. Although the House version of the Farm Bill has passed, the Senate version has not. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., has introduced legislation that would prohibit closure or relocation of FSA county offices for one year.

"We want to take a time out," said Cody Wertz, spokesman for the senator.

The waiting-period legislation was introduced as a standalone bill, Wertz said, but it could be attached to the Farm Bill to get it passed.

As of now, the decision to close some FSA offices rests with officials in Washington. Rieger expects to hear soon, and that decision will kick in a 120-day waiting period.