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Alternative Agricultural Water Transfer Methods - Grant and Loan Program <br />Project Summary Sheet <br />Applicant: CSUSouthern Regional Extension Office <br />Water Activity Name: The Effect of Land Fallowing and Water Rights Leasing on <br />Corn Yield, Nutrient Needs and Economics in the Lower Arkansas River Valley of <br />Colorado <br />Amount Requested: $110,883 <br />Matching Funds: Yes ($12,320) <br />Drainage Basin: Arkansas River <br />Water Source: Arkansas River <br />Project Summary: <br />This project is intended for two purposes. First, it will evaluate the technical (i.e., <br />economic, biophysical, and management) issues involved in maintaining or improving <br />yields on fallowed lands when they are put back into production after the lease <br />arrangement ends. Secondly, it will provide a logistical analysis regarding the <br />practicability of coordinating these arrangements with a broker (likely the Super Ditch <br />Company), and also canal companies possessing both senior and junior water rights in the <br />Valley. With respect to the fiinding program goals, the proposed project will provide <br />usable and transferable information that will increase statewide understanding of how to <br />continue farming within the context of lease arrangements, thereby sustaining meaningful <br />production agriculture. Leasing strategies being advanced in the Valley are intended to <br />avoid permanent retirement and blighting of productive farmland. Water rights leasing <br />promotes the fallowing of land from irrigation for a prescribed number of years or on an <br />interruptible basis, in order to supply water to municipal and industrial (M & I) interests. <br />In the minds of farmers who are unfamiliar with the concept, however, water leasing <br />strategies raise key questions about: 1) the extent to which this strategy can help sustain <br />farming operations economically; 2) the biophysical impacts (e.g., soil quality) on <br />farmland during fallowing, and how these impacts may affect future crop yields, and; 3) <br />the required costs and management associated with bringing land back into production <br />after it has been fallowed. These questions must be answered to inform irrigators of the <br />lease value of their water rights. Actual and ongoing demonstrations of water transfer, as <br />proposed in this project, will address an information gap regarding the economic value <br />and practicability of water leasing, as ultimately required to maintain profitable farming <br />operations. <br />The results of these demonstrations will also allow CSU Extension to provide <br />recommendations on land fallowing and returning fallowed land back to production. <br />These recommendations are needed because of the expectation that farming will continue