Like Davenport's Four MVR Farms, Colorado Farms has ten partners. Unlike Davenport's organization, "they were more careful" about meeting the USDA's requirements for CRP payments, says Bill Fritzler, who directs the Lincoln County Consolidated Farm Service Agency.
Colorado Farms' registered agent, Tom Otke, lives in Chillicothe, Missouri, a town of about 9,000 people ninety miles northeast of Kansas City. He owns a series of retirement homes in the area. One of them, Indian Hills, is in Chillicothe itself.
Otke did not return numerous phone calls. Still, while no one from Colorado Farms is talking, various Agriculture Department contracts show that Colorado Farms has done well by its Lincoln County investment.
Start with CRP payments. Government records show that for every year starting in 1989, when it purchased the old Beaty ranch for $2.2 million, the Missouri partnership has received $472,000. After the 1995 CRP check arrives this October, that will total up to just over $3.3 million.
In addition, Colorado Farms has continued to receive the 0/92 payments that Davenport qualified the land for in 1987. Three years ago the USDA changed the program to 0/85--meaning it pays only 85 percent of the money the land might have earned if it were producing good crops. Nevertheless, according to government records, the partners of Colorado Farms have collected a total of $138,500 between 1989 and 1995.
And that isn't all of the taxpayer money the government has spent on the Beaty ranch. The CRP's goal was to reduce erosion, so landowners had to agree to plant native grasses and trees on the enrolled property. Because the Lincoln County spread is such a huge piece of ground, and because the Canadians plowed up so much of it, the job wasn't easy. Replanting was required every year from 1987 through 1991.
Today the ranch looks spectacular. A tour of the sprawling property during a sun-soaked morning reveals a beautiful cover of blue and sideoats gramas, switchgrass and western wheat. Blue, yellow and orange wildflowers are fanned by a soft breeze. "You're seeing this country with its Sunday clothes on," says Paul Jenkins. "We've had quite a bit of moisture lately." A lone antelope moves across the horizon.
Such bliss doesn't come cheap. Government records show that replanting the old Beaty ranch has cost about $738,000. The government keeps such records, because in addition to the annual rental payments, as part of the Conservation Reserve Program it agreed to shoulder half the costs of reseeding. So covering the Beaty ranch with its splendid natural blanket cost taxpayers another $370,000.
In retrospect, it all seems silly. "It was definitely a pretty shady deal from anybody's standpoint, even if it was happenstance," says Dean Loukonen, the Kiowa County soil technician. "To break it out of grassland and then two years later pay to plant it over again--it's just ludicrous from a taxpayer's standpoint."
"The taxpayers are throwing money down a rathole on this land," adds John Beaty. "That thing would've done all right as a cattle ranch. We've had an unbelievable run in the cattle business lately. If I was still on there, I'd be doing great, and without any government subsidies."
Instead, it looks as though the government will keep paying. If Congress decides not to renew the Conservation Reserve Program, whoever owns the Beaty ranch could simply plow it under again. Once established, agricultural bases are permanent, so the owners would continue to receive the 0/85 payments. The farm could also become eligible for "deficiency payments," in which the government makes up the difference between actual market prices for crops and what it determines the crops should cost.
Or CRP could be extended, which seems more likely. The question is now being tackled by the Resource Conservation, Research and Forestry Subcommittee of the House Agriculture Committee. The subcommittee is chaired by Colorado's own Representative Wayne Allard, who has more than a passing interest in CRP.
According to an analysis of the program performed last year by a Washington, D.C., organization called Environmental Working Group, Allard's district in eastern Colorado receives more CRP money than all but four other Congressional districts. By the time the original program expires at the end of this year, about $821 million in direct government payments will have flowed to people who own farmland in his Fourth Congressional District.
One of Allard's employees, Doug Benevento, is the staff director of the subcommittee. He predicts that the Conservation Reserve Program will be extended for another decade, although it may be scaled back slightly. "CRP has been very important to the Plains region, because it has reduced soil erosion a great deal," he says. "We think it's a good program."
So, apparently, do the owners of Colorado Farms, who stand to qualify for another ten years of lucrative CRP subsidies. Recently, the Missouri company put the land up for sale, according to Ernie Hammer, the Otero/Crowley County conservation officer. Hammer says he considered trying to buy the place for ranching. It was listed for $3 million. But several months ago, with CRP appearing increasingly likely to continue, the asking price was bumped up to $5 million.
end of part 2
