Despite recent precipitation, it’s still dry in southeastern Colorado and that has dire implications for agriculture in the region

The recent rain and snow in southeastern Colorado might help drought conditions in the region. But it’s still one of the driest winters in decades for snowfall and that has dire implications for agriculture in the Arkansas River Basin.

This is the time of year that farmers can start irrigating fields. Jack Goble leads the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District. He said agricultural producers on the Plains rely on snowmelt from the mountains to fill the Arkansas River with water for their crops, and that is likely to be extremely low this year.

“We're eternal optimists,” he said. ”We're always hopeful that we'll get another snowstorm or two, but it's a pretty bleak outlook at this point.”

“You'll likely see thousands of acres that go idle,” he said. “If we stay on the hydrologic trend that we're on right now."

Agricultural producers evaluate the best use for the water they have available. Goble said growers will likely cut back on how much they plant and what types of crops they grow. They need to take into account fixed costs that don’t change, like water shares, property taxes and debt payments.

“Farmers (especially those who grow irrigated crops) are ultimate risktakers,” he said. "They're putting all this money in on the front end, but trying to limit their exposure in a year like this. At the same time they're going in knowing they're going to lose money.”

If the weather patterns change and more snow and rain come later than usual, Goble said farmers can be nimble and change course.

“Most producers will have plan A, plan B, and plan C,” he said. For example, they may stock up on seeds that can be planted later in the season.

Even if the water situation improves after harvest season, the farmers will put it to good use, adding moisture to the parched soil. He recounted a saying told to him by a longtime area grower, “it always rains when you need it in this country – because anytime it rains, you need it.”

Low water years are also bad for the economies of communities in the Lower Arkansas River Basin. 

Goble said he worries that more drought could be what farmers are facing in the future too.

“Water and dollars are synonymous with each other in our area,” Goble said. “When it rains, those are dollar bills falling out of the sky. When there's snow pack flowing down the river, those are dollar bills that are injected into our economy.”

“We're really going into uncharted territory here,” he said. “Just when you think you've seen the driest of times, then Mother Nature surprises you and it even gets worse.”