Sustainable Agriculture - What We Need!

In order to not only allow, but to ENCOURAGE sustainable local agriculture in every county in the Roaring Fork Valley, we need the following:

1. Unlimited Greenhouses: Jerome Osentowski of Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in Basalt, has demonstrated for nearly three decades, how to grow very diverse food crops, using greenhouses and outdoor forest gardens. There is very little we can grow without greenhouses. We MUST be able to put acres under greenhouse, if we are going to grow a vital local food economy.

2. Just like the old west, we need root cellars for winter food storage and bunkhouses for agricultural workers, located on ranches and farms. We are experiencing now the phenomenon of our children going off to college, some of them learning agriculture and coming back to help build a local food economy, but they are having great difficulty finding housing. Our market has priced them far out of the ability to obtain housing, and we must solve this, or we will continue to experience Brain-Drain - losing the knowledgable and enthusiastic people who want to grow our food!   Can we fix this?

3. We need some form of tax advantages for ranch owners to lease irrigated farmland for vegetable farming in addition to animal raising. This may come in many forms, but unless we do it, we are wasting lots of irrigated land for pleasure horses, rather than real food for people.

4. Bear problems: We need a common-sense strategy for dealing with occasional bear problems, rather than blanket laws criminalizing the planting of fruit trees.  If we want to develop a local food economy, we will have to find creative ways of dealing with (or simply allowing) bears having a food-scarce year in the high country, who visit our orchards and restaurant dumpsters.

PitCo Ag-Zoning - The Latest

Here is the latest Table of Dimenional Requirements, for Ag-Zones from 2 acres to 160 acres in Pitkin County.

Base F.A.R. remains 5,750 sf, with TDR's up to 15,000 sf.

Greenhouses still considered Barns, still limited in size per earlier POST on April 14.

Pitkin County Agricultural Land Zoning

The Pitkin County Zoning Code says that Ag-Zones allow a maximum F.A.R. of 15,000 sf in zones AFR-20, RS-20, RS-30 and RS-160. If this is really true, how much F.A.R. do people really need? Can they combine the "barn" floor area with their leftover F.A.R., to create a large greenhouse, sufficient for commercial produce?

Pitkin County Land Use Guidelines

Sustainable Communities Zoning Code

Barns or Greenhouses?

Is a Greenhouse a "Barn" in which "trees, shrubs, flowers or vegetables are grown"? Here is a chart showing the "barn floor area" in excess of F.A.R. that properties of 20-acres or more may build, under current Pitkin County regulations. Shouldn't we allow something for 10-acre, even 2-acre properties? (click on an image to see it blown up larger by your browser - click the back button to return to the blog)