Walt Barnhart, Contributing Editor

It was just a matter of time.
An average of 20,000 vehicles a day were flying along Interstate 25 at 75 miles per hour just a half mile east of Jim Anderson’s Longmont, Colo., farm and feedlot. Meanwhile, commercial businesses were springing up all along the I-25 corridor and communities were designing their own master plans for the area.

You didn’t have to be clairvoyant to see that the agricultural use of Anderson’s operation just 20 miles north of Denver was destined to come to an end.
And in May 2006, it did.

“We felt the time had come,” Anderson said. He and his wife, Brenda, sold 595 acres of their original 600-acre homestead, which had been purchased by Jim’s grandfather, August Anderson, in 1911. They kept five acres on which the house – where his father was born in 1912 – was located, along with the barn.

Pride in ownership
It was an easy decision made during difficult circumstances. Anderson had always taken pride in his farming and feeding operation. At its peak, the feedlot had a one -time capacity of 1,500 head, and Anderson regularly marketed about 3,500 cattle a year. His farming operation included irrigated cropland used primarily to produce barley, wheat, corn, alfalfa and sugar beets.

He was just as proud, however, of his conservation, environmental and industry efforts. In 1999, he received the Environmental Stewardship Award from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. He was recognized as an innovator in water and soil conservation, which are critical in an area that gets only about 12 inches of precipitation a year.

Water was conserved through thousands of feet of concrete ditch and pipelines, with water in the feedlot holding ponds also used in field irrigation. Anderson’s distribution of water resources resulted in an estimated 75 percent water savings prior to field application.

An active and vocal supporter of the cattle industry, Anderson has served in leadership positions in a number of state and national organizations, including as president of the Colorado Cattle Feeders Association. Anderson was honored as the 1992 Cattle Businessman of the Year by the National Cattlemen’s Foundation. That same year, he was recognized as Farm Journal’s Outstanding Farm Steward of the Year.

Anderson’s operation was frequently held up by the industry as a model of a farm/feedlot that could succeed in an area that was urbanizing quickly. He gave generously of his time and opened his operation to those wanting to see the challenges faced by farmers and feeders on a day-to-day basis – and the inventive ways to address them.

Timing was right
Anderson, 52, said the entire family was in agreement on the timing of the sale. (Brenda and Jim have two daughters, both attending Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Megan is a sophomore and Rachelle graduated in December.)

The fact that developers were anxious to acquire their property was certainly a key factor. Anderson was able to dictate the conditions and timing of the sale, and walked away from the transaction with a price per acre his father or grandfather would have found staggering.

Price per acre? More accurate to discuss price per square foot, because, in the end, a dollar per square foot is what the Andersons settled on for their property. (Although times change, conversion factors do not. There are still 43,560 square feet in an acre.)

Alternative agriculture
Jim Anderson continues to be active in an emerging form of “alternative” agriculture found in increasingly urbanized areas. Called “agritainment,” this business combines the needs of urbanites for new kinds of entertainment with the needs of agriculture to educate consumers on where their food comes from.

Anderson’s family had acquired a 240-acre parcel nine miles south of their original property in 1958. On this site they now run an operation that is at its height in the fall, when pumpkins are popular and corn is at its tallest. The agritainment arm of Anderson Farms celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.

The new Anderson Farms, in which Jim Anderson’s cousin, Peggy Shupe, is a partne r, was the first in Colorado to introduce the “corn maze” to the population (in 1999). There are now dozens of corn mazes operating throughout the state.

During the September and October corn maze and pumpkin festival, Anderson Farms will employ 175 people and, during busy days, have about 7,000 visitors and up to 30 school field trips. There are 11 hay wagons (including one that is handicapped accessible) that carry visitors to a 30-acre pumpkin patch, which is rotated every year. Also on the farm are hay-bale mazes for small children and farm animals that help educate children – and their parents – about where food comes from.

School children are treated to an educational presentation from one of the farm’s trained employees before being taken in the wagons to the fields to pick out a pumpkin. (They are allowed to take the largest pumpkin they can carry.)

Those wagons also take people through a haunted activity in the corn field, featu ring about 50 actors in costume. Anderson expected 12,000 to 20,000 people to have gone through the haunted activity during its run, at $20 apiece – with as many as 3,000 in a single night.

“At one time we couldn’t believe that people would actually pay for bottled water or to walk through a corn field,” said Anderson. “Now, those are the things we make money on.”

Anderson said he is now really operating a theme park, “and the theme is a farm.” He said wineries in California were the first to introduce the concept, opening roadside stands, then incorporating tours of their facilities when the stands became increasingly popular.

Using his talent and respect for conservation, Anderson utilized material from his original site – as well as other nearby farms and businesses – in the new operation. A backup feedlot generator now powers just about everything. He salvages hay wagons, boxcars, mobile homes, grain bins, old fences and siding – almost anything – for not only the haunted activity, but for the other elements of the farm.

Anderson also uses his artistic talent to create artistic pieces from scrap metal he accumulates, placing them throughout the property. From pigs and dinosaurs to futuristic space creations, Anderson has populated his operation with his own metal artwork and imagination.

“The creating, planning, inventing and designing are what I enjoy most,” Anderson said. Among his other talents, friends say, are his ability to recognize a trend before it happens, and his incredible aptitude for building things. Much of the equipment on his farm has imaginative features that utilize pieces of other discarded equipment or supplies.

Sensing the future
Anderson recognizes that changes brought about by urbanization in the area aren’t done yet.

“Most of our neighbors would rather have this than the alternative,” Anderson said. But he recognizes that the landscape is changing and that these changes will affect the way he operates his new business.

For one thing, Anderson Farms now has a permit that allows only 500 visitors a day. They operate under a “Use by Special Review” (USR) permit in Weld County, and want to be able to increase that number to 10,000 to 15,000 if they can.

Meeting the demands of county commissioners for the USR can be tricky, however. “My biggest fear is that when you open up a USR, they can make special requests,” Anderson said. “Will we able to meet their requests? We just don’t know.”

Anderson looks across the road at a gravel pit, which is already scheduled to feature 20 high-end luxury homes when the gravel runs out. He knows the owners of those homes may not be as appreciative of an entertaining, educational facility as the current neighbors are.

Today, though, it’s a living that suits Anderson just fine. “Overall, it’s a lot of stress and a lot of work,” he said. “But when people come up to me and say ‘thank you, Mr. Anderson,’ it makes it all worth it.”