THE LATEST
Each year the USDA, through the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), reports on agricultural land values. Generally speaking farm real estate average values per acre have stayed relatively stable in New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming from 2015 to 2019. Across the Mountain Region, values have risen 8% over five years in large part due to a significant rise in values in both Idaho and Utah.
The Upper Colorado River Commission (UCRC) has issued a Request for Proposals to invite users of the Colorado River System water in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming to submit proposals for Pilot Program water conservation projects. Projects are meant to test methods for saving water that could be part of a drought contingency plan in the Upper Basin of the Colorado River.
National agriculture industry consulting and CPA firm K-Coe Isom recently announced a new program aimed to help ranchers generate revenue from conservation projects while simultaneously reducing the rancher’s inherent risk of testing and implementing such projects. Funded by the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), the program is specific to ranchers whose property is located in priority sage grouse habitat or crucial mule deer winter range or designated mule deer migration corridors within Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, or California.
Focused on the Great Basin, one of 22 Landscape Conservation Cooperatives in North America, the Great Basin Landscape Conservation Cooperative (Great Basin LCC) represents a partnership among public and private groups. The Great Basin LCC supports landscape-scale conservation, promotes science, and enables management based on traditional knowledge and science so human and ecological communities can respond and adapt to climate and land use change.
