On a cold and wet October day in 2012, participants in the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Fall Ag Tour descended from two charter buses onto an extremely muddy sugar beet field. There to greet them was Famuer Rasmussen Jr. and his farm crew, all smiling despite the rain dripping down their necks. The original plan was for Famuer to speak briefly to the participants about the sugar beet harvesting process, then have them spend the bulk of the time watching the digger scoop up sugar beets, clean them off and deposit them in the large trucks waiting to deliver them to the Western Sugar Cooperative in Fort Morgan. Despite his protestations that he would likely have little to talk about, Famuer’s story about how he came into farming and how he has successfully grown his business easily occupied the 45 minutes allocated to his portion of the tour.
Farming from the Very Beginning
Famuer is a third generation Boulder County farmer, and as he tells it, sugar beets have been a part of his life from the beginning. Famuer’s father was in the middle of digging sugar beets when his mother went into labor with him, and he’s never been too far away from a sugar beet field since then. Famuer started driving tractors for his father when he was nine years-old, and in high school he started to farm for his uncle, Howard Rasmussen. In his early 20s, Famuer decided to try his own hand at farming by renting a 40-acre property on Highway 52 outside of Longmont and borrowing equipment from his father and uncle. Another farm came up for lease shortly after that, and Famuer added it to his growing enterprise. In 1990, Boulder County Parks and Open Space (BCPOS) acquired the second parcel as part of its agricultural property portfolio, and Famuer’s long-term and successful relationship with the county began.
In the last 28 years, Famuer has gone from renting 40 acres of privately held property to farming approximately 1,000 acres of BCPOS property and an additional 200 acres of private cropland. Like many of the farmers who still operate in the county, Famuer runs a diversified commodity crop program that includes rotating fields of sugar beets, hard red winter wheat, corn, silage, shell corn, alfalfa and Coors malt barley. Along with Western Sugar Cooperative and Coors, Famuer sells his products to ConAgra in Commerce City and Front Range Dairy in Fort Lupton, and the resulting wheat, sugar, milk and beer can be found on most super market shelves long the Front Range.
Over the years, Famuer has consistently found ways to use resources more efficiently and works with National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to test new techniques and growing methods. Working with BCPOS and NRCS, Famuer installed his first center pivot irrigation system, which allowed him to transition that farm away from furrow irrigation and to see significant reduction in water usage for that particular field. He has since added two more pivots to his farms and is incorporating other conservation management practices such as strip till, drift reducing nozzles, high level integrated pest management and hay harvesting that better flushes out wildlife. Many of these efforts were funded through an Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) Air Quality contract aimed at reducing high nitrogen levels being recorded in Rocky Mountain National Park. All of these efforts resulted in Famuer and his wife, Carmen Gibson, winning the 2013 NRCS Colorado Farmer Conservationists of the Year award.
Farmland For Years to Come
When asked what the BCPOS program has meant for farmers and agriculture in Boulder County, Famuer reflected that many of the current farmers grew up on these properties and have always known them as farmland. The program gives farmers a way to earn a living and lets them remain together as friends and neighbors. Famuer complimented an “all-around great program” and in turn, the staff at BCPOS would like to applaud an all-around great farmer. Efforts by Famuer and the other 80 agriculture tenants have ensured that county agricultural land will remain healthy and productive for many years to come.
business today.