How an Open Space program is sustaining agriculture in one of Colorado’s most expensive counties

A chorus of baaa-ing sheep and the bleats of their newborn lambs nearly drowned out their farmer’s headcount of the babies. 

“There are about 30 lambs here,” said Alyssa Barsanti, owner of Marigold Livestock Co. “They’re all under two weeks old. The oldest one was a single, and singles sometimes put on weight faster.”

Lambing season brings her herd of 29 ewe and their offspring down from her grazing pastures to her 3-acre parcel just across Hooks Spur Road in Basalt. 

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It’s round-the clock work, tending to the ewe as they birth singles, twins, and even triplets. Sometimes the lambs die, and Barsanti will then attempt to “graft” a third lamb with ewe that lost its baby — a kind of good-natured trickery to get an ewe to adopt a lamb.

“It’s often hard for the mom to raise three lambs through maturity,” she said. “If I leave all the triplets on the mom, when they’re ready for processing, they’re mediocre in size. Whereas if I pull one, then the two that stay on the mom turn out really nicely. And that third turns out decent.”

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If grafting doesn’t work, then the lamb becomes a “bottle baby” who is fed via bottle by her or a farm hand every few hours. It’s labor intensive for not as good of a payoff with a grafted lamb.

“If I can get one to nurse and have the opportunity to eat around the clock, then that’s ideal,” she added.

She leases roughly 100 acres in Glassier Open Space through Pitkin County’s Open Space and Trails (OST) agriculture lease program. Marigold Livestock Co. includes sheep and lamb, broiler chickens, and turkeys. Ten head of cattle will join the operation this fall. 

Barsanti sells direct to consumer via farm pickup and at the Two Roots farm stand — also an OST lessee — in the summer. Chickens are priced $7/pound, and the grass-fed lamb can be purchased by cut or in bundles. A 1-pound rack of lamb costs $30.

OST prevents development on over 24,000 acres in the Roaring Fork Watershed through conservation easements or outright ownership. Nearly 800 of those acres across 18 leases are leased out to agricultural producers. It could be more, but OST only leases land suitable to agriculture with associated water rights. 

“We’ve been building, into our conservation easements, the ability for staff to work with landowners to lease their land if (the owner) doesn’t want to continue with agriculture. We say specifically that you can utilize our process to find a lessee,” said Paul Holsinger, OST’s agriculture and conservation easement manager. “We just want people to continue to ranch and farm.”

Of the 18 leases, 12 are 5-year leases, and six are annual leases. Some producers hold more than one lease, so the program has 14 lessees in total. Six of them would have been considered beginner farmers at the start of their leases. 

Primary uses of the land by the producers run a wide agriculture gamut. Drew Walters, agricultural specialist for OST, said there are four hay operations, six hay and grazing operations, five grazing operations, one vegetable operation, one grain operation, and one flower operation. 

Standard lease pricing is shockingly low compared to market rates for other land uses — at just $25 per acre per year. Walters, whose job also includes agriculture extension work through Colorado State University, said they base that rate on CSU’s Custom Rates survey.

“It’s not a money-making program,” he said. “Our goal is to help find land for producers in our area that that need land.”

Some producers hold leases with even lower rates, which he said he has spoken with lessees about increases up to that standard rate in the future.  

Barsanti said she’d never be able to afford to purchase her own land, and during her land search, many private landowners were turned off by livestock.

“(The lease cost is) more than my business insurance but less than my chicken feed budget and way less than labor costs,” she said. “I think there are other creative avenues that you could go about getting affordable land. But I certainly could not buy land and pay a mortgage. I would be in incredible, incredible debt.”

The money OST earns from leases goes into OST’s budget, which is used to acquire and conserve more land. 

How OST selects its producers

Acquiring Glassier Open Space in 2011 and 2014 sparked intense interest in agriculture leasing, Holsinger said. OST adopted an Agricultural Lease Bid Process and Policy in 2014 to manage the interest, inspired by Boulder County’s program. It has seen multiple updates — most recently in 2022. 

When open space is available to lease, staff works on a management plan — which includes public input — that lays out priorities and areas of concern for the parcel. OST then issues a Request for Proposals (RFP) and evaluates applicants based on experience (25%), compatibility (25%), organization and equipment (20%), and practices and sustainability (30%).

“We don’t want experience to be a limiting factor,” Walters said. “But we certainly like to see experience specific to what they are proposing for an operation because we don’t want to see businesses fail.”

He does work through annual operating plans with producers to ensure they don’t exceed carrying capacity on the land and help lessees get connected with other agricultural resources, like the USDA Farm Service Agency, as needed. 

Only one lease has terminated early, he said, and that was due to the lessee being stretched too thin at their other location. No one has had a business failure or flagrantly violate lease terms.

It used to be that at every renewal, the lease would have to go back to an RFP. Now, if the lessee is in good standing with OST and has the recommendation of the OST board and Board of County Commissioners, the lease can be renewed another five years.

“The uncertainty of land tenure is a major issue. Having people interested in agricultural land gives us fuel to try to create leases that are suitable for that interest,” Walters said. “We want to provide land that people can start their business on and they can be on that land for as long as they’re taking good care of it.”

Barsanti’s in the third year of her lease and said her small-scale operation about breaks even.

“Ultimately, a five year lease isn’t long-term at all. Sometimes, I (feel) like it’s really not that secure,” she said. “But I guess I just have trust that it will be renewed if I’m in good standing, and I plan to be in good standing.”

OST is not in the business of subsidizing farms, Walters said. They do not offer free or subsidized equipment to producers, but they do work to improve the leases they offer by strengthening infrastructure, the health of the land, and climate-friendly projects.

In March 2023, he oversaw the installation of a center pivot irrigation system at Glassier Open Space on Barsanti’s leasehold. 

The pivot replaced the flood irrigation method previously used on the 50-something acres of pasture and saving nearly 50% of water use on the space — which frees up approximately 2.1 cubic feet per second of water for previously unirrigated land in Glassier Open Space, according to a 2023 report.

The system cost $268,053. OST funded the bulk of the project, with a $50,000 contribution from Colorado River District and soil sensor donations from Aspen Global Change Institute. With the $50,000 donation, OST must allow other producers to “tour” the pivot. 

Barsanti now oversees the system, mostly able to control it from her phone. It’s been a boon for her operation, she said, particularly for labor. 

Walters admitted that Marigold Livestock Co. and her benefit from the project, and that most producers would not be able to afford a $260,000 investment. But he sees it as OST’s duty to maximize water efficiency on the open space and invest in the land and property long term. 

“It’s a county initiative; we are the ones who are driving that because it’s for the betterment of the property,” he said. “It’s not something that’s specifically related to the operation.”

Longevity on the agricultural open space

Marigold Livestock Co. has room to grow. Barsanti, who was not raised in agriculture and is only three years into running her own operation, said she’s prioritized slow growth and staying out of major debt for her farm.

As long as she’s able to, she’ll stick with the program and stay on the land. She lives in Carbondale now but hopes to move onto the property one day.

The farmhouse of the Glassier family sits on her leasehold, as well as the old barn. These days, the only inhabitants of those buildings are rats and dried, compacted manure. 

They’re historic buildings, and Holsinger said OST is pursuing grants to restore the historic structures on the Glassier Open Space and more as the best way to care for a structure is to keep it in use. 

Finding ways to allow housing on the leased property is a relatively new objective for the program, but it’s another example of OST investing in the longevity of the properties they lease to local, small-scale agriculture producers. 

“We’ve realized that a the big piece of making the farm work is having housing on site. And before, we wouldn’t buy properties if they had houses,” Holsinger said. “We’re ‘open space’ not ‘housing.’ In some cases, we tore a house or two down. It’s kind of a bummer now.”

Walters hopes to customize the program to include more vegetable growers in the future. Lease terms might change depending on infrastructure costs taken on by OST — veggie growers need washing stations, tractor irrigation, or cold storage. 

Although OST has been leasing land that’s been historically used for agriculture back to producers for much of its history, the program’s potential will expand so long as locals value local agriculture.

“All the ag producers in the valley, big or small, are incredibly passionate about tending to the land and contributing to our food systems,” Barsanti said. “There’s a really cool history of agriculture in the valley that’s kind of shrinking as land prices increase. And so supporting local producers is just a really direct way to help keep our agriculture in this valley.”