Jay Loschert, Montezuma Land Conservancy

Like most teenagers, the students from Southwest Open School (SWOS) who joined Montezuma Land Conservancy’s Agriculture Immersion Program this summer had given the drought very little thought.  Before the four-week program began, many were unaware of the challenging conditions facing local farmers, ranchers, and water managers.  At best, drought seemed very abstract.  But after working at MLC’s education and research center at Fozzie’s Farm, it got real in a hurry!  As one participant put it, “My experience here was kind of an eye-opener about how different kinds of irrigation and farming play a hand in our environment and our community.”

With support from members like you, for the past five years at MLC we’ve been working alongside and learning from youth of all ages.  At Fozzie’s Farm we organize field trips for school groups, provide summer enrichment programs, host multi-day service-learning trips, and hire teens to spend their summers working and learning at the farm.  These youth come to us with a wide range of experiences and understanding of water issues; they all leave with a new appreciation of water’s sacred nature and a story of what they’ve done to honor it.

For the last two years, we’ve focused their energy and creative thinking on the questions of how to farm with an uncertain supply of irrigation water.  How do we adapt our management practices to a changing climate?  Can we maintain or even increase production levels with less water?  How does grazing and deficit irrigating impact soil health?  Thanks to funding from the Southwest Basin Roundtable and the Colorado Water Conservation Board, we involve youth in a research project centered on improving our efficiency, building soil health, and growing public engagement in water issues. Titled, “Innovative Agricultural Management and Colorado’s Next Generation of Water Leaders,” the two-year project aligns with Colorado’s Water Plan.

With help from our partners at Colorado State University in 2020 we installed soil moisture probes in one of our irrigated pastures.  The probes provide us with data for irrigation decisions.  To track the impact of better decision-making, we collect measurements on soil health, forage production, and species composition in the pasture.  And the best part?  All along the way, youth work side by side with the scientists, installing the equipment, clipping forage, bagging soil samples, measuring infiltration rates, and recording species in the pastures.

Recently we hosted a field day at Fozzie’s Farm to hear from our partners and the youth who have been involved in the research project.  Thirty people shared their stories and expertise, discussed the challenges we face, and brainstormed solutions.  For me, the most inspiring part of the day was listening to the young people who participated.  Native American students from Fort Lewis College reflected on their new awareness of water issues and food sovereignty and described how they’ve taken action to create a new, more equitable reality.  MLC’s own new Water Education Interns, Gigi Powelson and AJ Saiz, led us into the research field and got all of us involved in the citizen science work that youth at Fozzie’s Farm have been doing.

Our efforts to nurture this next generation of water leaders grow daily.  MLC is investing in the future and making a difference in the lives of young people. 

“I would like to share one story of a young person whom I had in classes last year.  He was moderately engaged and spent a significant amount of time on his phone.  He did just enough academically to get by, but he has always been a hard worker.  This young person signed up for the Agriculture Immersion Program. He continued to work hard, and he is now interning out at Fozzie’s.  He is giving presentations to his classmates and meeting with community members.  I spoke with him the other day, he was wearing his MLC shirt and beaming about all that has come to him from this program, and all that he was doing, “I am going to speak with all of the members and give a presentation,” he told me.  I know his friends and how some of them struggle, I worry about them, but not this young person.  I truly believe his involvement in MLC has changed something for him, something in him.  This is the real work of building a healthy community and supporting our young people. - Devyn Lacey, Ag Immersion Program Director and SWOS teacher