Oxbow Farm Colorado

Chicken-gate Update

Chicken-gate Update

We apologize for the lateness of this update on things with the chickens and the county. We met with the county a couple weeks ago. Mesa county and the state of Colorado are both have right to farm. Apparently right to farm only applies if you already live in a AFT (ag) zone. Which to be honest is kind of pointless. Since our property is in unincorporated mesa county but in a residential setting we are not in a AFT zone. As the current laws and codes are written urban farms such as ours in Mesa County have no rights. We were told this in the meeting when we asked "so what your telling us is, in Mesa county Urban Farmers have no rights?" Their answer was a resounding "yes". Apparently in the very near future the city of Grand Junction will take over or annex the Oxbow area and it will become part of the city of Grand Junction. By shutting us down when this annex happens the city and county will not have to "grandfather" us in. It's all part of a very political game.

What does this mean for the future of urban farms in the county?
There is no mistaking urban farming movement is growing nation wide and within Mesa County. We think in the very near future there will be enough urban farms that as a collective urban farmers can go after the county legally and say times are changing it's time to support urban farms. We are not in a position right now to take on this fight all on our own. Should this happen in the near future we will gladly support the effort and be involved in any effort to fight for urban farms.

What does this mean for Oxbow Farm? We are under contract to purchase a track of land here in Mesa County. The land is up on Glade Park and is zoned AFT. This track is 35 acres and will allow us to do much more for our clients. In the coming months we will start the moving process and selling the current Oxbow Farm property. Our current delivery schedule will not change. Thursday and Saturdays will continue to be our delivery days. If you are currently one of our clients that pick up eggs or produce at the farm then you will be switched to one of these two delivery days unless you want to drive up to the farm at our new location.

We will continue to keep everyone updated as we move forward with all this.

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Oxbow Farm Colorado