2025 Impact Highlight
San Luis Valley Area, Southern Region
Conference addresses critical challenges, opportunities for Colorado ag producers
Farmers and ranchers constantly face challenges and uncertainty around weather, markets, and natural resource constraints. In the San Luis Valley, water resources present a major challenge, with producers significantly reducing irrigation water use, shutting down wells, or leaving fields to dry up. There is urgent need to revegetate these fields to prevent soil loss, inhibit invasive weed growth, and to address the reduction in production potential that represent an economic threat to producers’ businesses and the regional economy.
The Southern Rocky Mountain Ag Conference (SRMAC) started as – and remains – a major CSU Extension educational event and trade show. The theme of the 43rd SRMAC in 2025 was “Holding Our Ground: Securing the Future of Our Water, Land, Businesses, and Families,” reflecting the need to physically revegetate and hold soil, and the corresponding risks to the survival of agricultural businesses, families, and communities.
The SRMAC educational program is developed with the guidance of a committee representing ag producers, consultants, researchers, industry professionals, and CSU Extension faculty. The 2025 conference featured 50 sessions consisting of presentations, demonstrations, workshops, and panel discussions.
Topics ranged from legislative and macro economic updates to calf and lamb survival; estate and succession planning to biological weed control; potato disease research updates to ag suicide prevention; farm irrigation efficiency to alternative crops; and from long-term climate outlook to strategies for aquifer sustainability. Stephen Nicholson, EVP Global Sector, Rabobank, delivered the keynote, “Our Challenges and Opportunities.”
SRMAC hosted 607 participants from seven states and more than seven Colorado counties were represented in the educational program.
A total of 667 evaluations were returned on 36 of the 50 sessions. The overall quality and value of the sessions were rated at 4.6 and 4.6 out of 5 respectively.Out of 667 responses, 639 (96%) reported learning something new, and 557 responses out of 656 (85%) reported expecting to use what they had learned.
In addition to the extensive education provided, the SRMAC is a model of collaboration and community support. San Luis Valley Area Extension, CSU’s San Luis Valley Research Center, Monte Vista Chamber of Commerce, the City of Monte Vista, two local committees, CSU departments, and Extension faculty from the regional and state level all contributed to the success of the conference.
Local businesses and agencies provide sponsorships and provided six meals and two social events featuring local restaurants and food service providers while the trade show enables producers to connect with and place orders with the businesses on which they rely. As a result, SRMAC also stimulates economic activity in the region and represents perhaps the largest social event for the ag community annually.
By supporting ag producers through education and opportunities to connect and learn about critical and emerging topics and issues in agriculture, SRMAC helps producers implement more sustainable strategies for land management and crop production, increase operational and resource efficiency, and contributes to the success and resilience of the ag economy in the SLV region and beyond.