Rooted in the Yampa Valley: The Next Generation of Ranchers

America’s farmers are getting older. Farmers and ranchers age 65 and older are the fastest growing demographic in agriculture. Young producers are keeping pace, often as first-generation farmers. They are breaking new ground, overcoming challenges and carving unique paths to success.

Growing with Sustainability in Mind

According to the National Young Farmers Coalition, today’s young farmers (40 years and younger) are deeply committed to sustainability, adopting regenerative practices and driving positive change.

For Noah Price and Sydney Ellbogen, the young couple behind Mountain Bluebird Farm, a small organic produce farm based in Hayden, Colorado, farming offers a tangible way to deliver impact and income. Their vision to start their own operation started in the farm fields outside Boulder, Colorado, and in 2020 they headed northwest to Hayden. 

“I love spending my days outside just feeling in tune with nature,” mused Sydney when asked why they chose farming. “I love watching things grow from seed to something that you can eat and then share with other people.”

Phillip Kellenback, another young producer from Hayden, fulfilled a lifelong dream in 2021 when he purchased 235 acres near Elkhead Reservoir. For almost 20 years, he labored on local ranch land in addition to teaching snowboarding and waiting tables – always with a goal to save the money to purchase a ranch and acquire the experience to run it. 

Phill named his operation Bears Ears Ranch and set about introducing regenerative grazing practices. He’s intent on restoring natural balance on his land and healing the degradation from 30+ years of overgrazing. This managed grazing approach is paving a path to making his land more productive and profitable. He adds, “You know, like all of us, I’m only on this land for a little bit. I believe I have a responsibility to leave it in better shape than I found it.”

Starting Small, but with Big Aspirations
Despite their ambitions, young farmers face significant barriers, including rising land prices, fluctuating input costs, and limited access to capital. Many lack the land equity, collateral and resources to buy land. They rely on creative financing and diversified income streams, and leasing often becomes their only, best option. 

Mountain Bluebird Farm has moved multiple times, leasing different parcels. While not ideal, the experience has given them confidence. “If you can get a good lease, that’s better than sinking all your money into land,” says Noah. “Certainly there’s a benefit to owning land as an investment that grows–if you can afford it. If you have limited resources upfront, it’s better to lease the land and put all your money into growing the business and name of the farm. Then 10 years down the road, you can afford to buy something.”

Born to a ranching family in Yampa, Colorado, Sarajane Snowden of Snowden Meats was eager to follow in her family’s footsteps. However, given current market realities, for the ranch to support her parents and potentially all four of their daughters would require expanding the current operation. “When my dad joined the family cattle operation, they were able to expand the ranch enough to support two families,” she explained. “It gets a lot trickier when land prices hinder that expansion.” 

Instead, Sarajane and her husband Travis found land to lease and started a cattle business with yearlings. Like the two-thirds of other young producers, they rely on their day jobs for income – she as an accountant and him as a ranch manager. In many ways, it’s a passion project that’s laying the groundwork for a full-time, profitable enterprise. 

“You gotta love it,” says Sarajane. “If we were born a generation earlier, we’d probably own land by now. But I’m proud of how we’ve adapted, diversified, and learned to ranch smarter.”

Short on Capital, Long on Ingenuity
Programs like the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) and value-added agriculture grants exist to support young farmers, but many find the process cumbersome and ineffective. 

“FSA wants you to find the cows first and then apply,” says Sarajane. “But when opportunities come up, you need money fast. Without capital, you miss out.” Buying land has become extremely competitive, with investors and larger operations ready and able to buy up prime farm and ranch land as it comes to market.

To get started, the Snowdens secured a low-interest family loan and took advantage of early-2020s low rates. They keep overhead minimal, share equipment, and strategically invest in high-quality bulls to build a strong herd over time. While they face steep competition for more affordable BLM (Bureau of Land Management) grazing leases, they take advantage of better infrastructure offered by leasing private grazing land.

“The only way we’re able to survive is by managing our inputs to a T,” says Sarajane. “We know what it’s going to cost to run a cow every single month. We’re overly aggressive, stretch out our growing season, keeping our jobs off the farm and our living costs down. We’re investing everything else back into the business, recognizing there will be years when we don’t actually make money.” 

Leveling Out a Steep Learning Curve
With over three-quarters of young producers identifying as first-time farmers, many lack generational knowledge but make it up with ingenuity. 

Take Phill from Bears Ears. In many ways, by ranching regeneratively, he’s bucking the trend in a region and state largely revered for its more conventional cattle ranch operations. But he’s the last person to pass judgment on another rancher. He understands that many are raising cattle to make a living, doing it the same way their family has for generations. 

Phill adds, “I don’t judge anyone for working hard. But we’re at a tipping point—more land is becoming unusable because the soil is dead. People will naturally be more open to change when the old ways stop working.”

Sarajane sees a shift in perspective, too. “Many in my dad’s generation think sustainability is for ‘hippies’, but good ranching practices have always been inherently regenerative. When you focus on soil and resource health, you’re ranching regeneratively—whether you call it that or not.”

Forging a More Direct Path to Profit
Young farmers face the same challenges as their more experienced peers, navigating record high production costs with diminishing returns. As Americans shift to more processed food and eating out, supply chains grow longer. Off-farm costs like marketing, distribution and retailing, and food processing consume much of the cost to produce today’s food, resulting in less money back to the farm.

Alternative options like regional sourcing, farmers markets and community supported agriculture (CSA) offer solutions – reverting the supply chain back toward the farm. They also gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the vulnerabilities of the global food system were laid bare.

“The pandemic really shot a lot of holes in our current system,” attested Sarajane Snowden, a young cattle rancher from Yampa, Colorado. “The cattle market tanked overnight, just as we bought 250 cows. But it pushed us to really understand our inputs and explore direct-to-consumer sales.”

Sydney of Mountain Bluebird agreed. “Starting our operation in spring of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, was oddly great timing. We offered the community a fresh local product when food supply chains were unpredictable and it was scary to be inside public places like grocery stores.”

Creative Marketing
While on-farm markets, CSAs and farmers markets offer beginning farmers easy access to consumers, they are labor intensive, seasonally driven and hyper local. To scale, many young producers are branching out, spreading the word online and targeting wholesale markets like restaurants, local institutions, and direct processing. 

For cattle ranchers like Snowden Meats and Bears Ears Ranch, whole and half beef shares lock in sales and predictable revenue. They are also among the growing number of local producers who sell their products through the local market run by the Yampa Valley Community Ag Alliance (CAA). Throughout the year, the CAA also sponsors farm to table dinners, farm tours and other experiences to connect consumers to local producers. For example, Colby and Michelle Townsend of Hayden Fresh Farm co-hosted a cycling event and lunch, tapping into the local cycling community to expose a new audience to their regeneratively raised chickens and pigs. Bears Ears Ranch also hosted a tour to educate consumers on the benefits of regenerative grazing. 

“Seeing where your food comes from builds trust,” says Phill. “You feel connected to the animals, the producer and the land on which the animals are raised. When you buy from a local rancher, you know it’s truly grass-fed, grass-finished, and free of hormones and antibiotics. You don’t get that guarantee at the grocery store.”

Concludes Noah of Mountain Bluebird, “Farming isn’t the easiest business to be in, but it’s incredibly rewarding. We have goals of scaling up with the hope of lowering our costs and producing more. But it just will take time to get there. For now and into the near future, we feel really good.”