At a public meeting on December 20th, Boulder County Commissioners Will Toor, Cindy Domenico and Ed Pearlman discussed the adoption of a Cropland Policy for the county’s Parks and Open Space. Two drafts were under consideration, the Parks and Open Space Cropland Policy and the Citizen’s Cropland Policy, which was developed independently by citizens of the county. The issues contained in the drafts were contentious enough that a public hearing on the issue lasted 9 ½ hours. The most controversial of the subjects was the growing of GMOs on county-owned land, but the local horse community was equally frustrated over the proposition to prioritize other livestock over horses in all aspects of the use of the land, including the selling of hay and leasing of land.
At the meeting, the commissioners rejected both of these suggestions. On the issue of horses, they pointed to the possibility of creating conflict with the equestrian community, which at this point is unnecessary because there is not a problem with the availability of open space land or strong competition over its use. They also rejected the proposal that trails always be placed on the edge of the property, something which again would disproportionately affect horse owners, because of the recognition that trails are not necessarily best placed on the edge of the property, even considering the goal of limiting cropland loss. “We want the flexibility to look at the most sensible place to put trails given the balance of concern,” said Will Toor. “There are clearly examples when the most sensible rout might be the edge of a ditch or canal.”
Regarding the issue of GMOs, commissioners argued that evidence of health risks and cross pollination were not strong enough to warrant banning GMOs and the impact it would have on local farmers. Though much of the discussion was framed in the context of the ideal workings of the county as a whole, they said that this, though it would harm farmers, would not really help achieve this vision. They also rejected the notion that using local food would significantly reduce fossil fuel use and emissions. Instead, they argued that the steps which needed to be taken involved encouraging organic farming, new farmers, family farms and research. They did, however, vote that any new genetically modified crops which become available must be approved before being used, and opposed the use of GM alfalfa or crops used in rotation with corn and sugar beets.
Parts of the Cropland Policy which were passed included expanding the target audience for lease application to include non-profit and community groups intended to “foster the development of beginning farmers on Boulder County Open Space,” encouraging research on Open Space Land “as much as is practical or sensible” and making any data available upon request. They also approved of developing a program to “discourage prairie dogs from occupying cropland,” but were careful not to limit options in terms of management or require killing them. They said that they would develop a program for the management of prairie dogs by July 1 of next year.
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