{"id":138522,"date":"2026-07-10T19:24:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T01:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pizza-for-producers-event-invites-southwest-colorado-farmers-ranchers-to-build-community\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T19:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T01:48:19","slug":"pizza-for-producers-event-invites-southwest-colorado-farmers-ranchers-to-build-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pizza-for-producers-event-invites-southwest-colorado-farmers-ranchers-to-build-community\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pizza for Producers\u2019 event invites Southwest Colorado farmers, ranchers to build community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Southwest
Southwest Colorado farmers and their families can enjoy pizza and a variety of conversations on the ups and downs of agriculture work as drought and fires affect cattle and crops. (AP file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

As drought cuts water allotments for Southwestern Colorado farmers and the 60,000 acre Ferris Fire threatens agricultural lands, Emily Lockard, Colorado State University Extension director for Montezuma County, says it\u2019s a deeply stressful time for producers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgriculture is this very isolating profession,\u201d Lockard said. \u201cAnd then you add drought, financial uncertainty, a huge fire \u2013 all of these things are a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

As such, the CSU Extension and Montezuma County are organizing a \u201cPizza for Producers\u201d event at the Southwestern Colorado Research Center at 16898 County Road Z in Yellow Jacket from 5:30 to 7 p.m. to July 23.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to invite people who are involved in ag just to come together,\u201d Lockard said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a time for people to have informal conversations, because a lot of them are just by themselves farming or ranching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attendees, who are encouraged to bring their families, will have pizzas while playing games like cornhole. The initiative encourages farmers and ranchers to build community and find support, especially as suicide rates in the farming community are 3.5 times that of the general public, according to the National Rural Health Association.<\/p>\n

The CSU Extension also sponsors Cattle, Crops and Coffee, an intermittent gathering of agriculture specialists, inviting Montezuma County farmers and ranchers to convene with free coffee. The last event was in May but Lockard said it will begin again in the fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes if you can get someone to go have a cup of coffee with you, or go grab a slice of pizza and just sit around and realize that you\u2019re not alone, I think that\u2019s super important for people to feel,\u201d Bobbi Lock, Montezuma County Public Health director, said during the Board of Health\u2019s Tuesday meeting.<\/p>\n

Those interested in Pizza for Producers can RSVP at col.st\/jurqy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

avanderveen@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The event is part of several community initiatives by Montezuma County and the CSU Extension<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[281,402,510,28,60,29,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-138522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-agriculture","tag-drought","tag-festive-event-including-carnival","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138524,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138522\/revisions\/138524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138522"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=138522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}