Author: Rachel Gabel

Rachel Gabel Bob Sakata is a legend in the agriculture industry in Colorado. He passed away on June 7 at the age of 96. His family farmed in California but when the attack on Pearl Harbor precipitated the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans, the Sakatas were sent to a camp in Topaz, Utah. It was agriculture that…

Rachel Gabel Don Gittleson’s ranch is situated just south of the Wyoming line near Walden. The ranch itself is surrounded by hills, and there are no big city lights to take your eyes off what matters. This is big country, this is ranch country, and Gittleson has been here for years. He has used good…

Rachel Gabel Consumers want to know that agriculture producers are doing the right thing, be it on a ranch, hog operation, feedyard, grain farm or dairy. This has been demonstrated to producers through consumers’ use of their food dollars, though from this side of the supply chain it’s sometimes difficult to hear over the din…

Rachel Gabel The Piceance (pronounced pee-anse) East Douglas Herd Management Area near Meeker is home to more feral horses than the dry, hard country can support. Gov. Jared Polis recently penned a letter to Bureau of Land Management Acting Director Stephanie Connolly asking the planned BLM gathers to be “delayed and reconsidered for replacement by…

Rachel Gabel In the city of Brush, Livestock Exchange is one of the local auction markets and, on Thursdays, it’s hopping. Trailers and bull racks fill the parking lot, and a string of saddled horses stand at the ready behind the building, bringing cattle to and from the ring as a voice over a speaker…

Rachel Gabel There will be a void when the legislative session gavels back in without Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, Sen. Don Coram, and Sen. Kerry Donovan. Sonnenberg, a farmer and rancher from Sterling, served 16 consecutive years, beginning in the House and moving to the Senate when former Sen. Greg Brophy was term limited. I’ve long…

Rachel Gabel Lamia, a village in Greece, bears resemblance to Meeker, or at least that’s how the story goes. A number of Greek immigrants followed the promise of a better life to America, leaving impoverished Greece behind. Many of them found work in the coal mines around Price, Utah, including a man named Regis Halandras.…

Rachel Gabel Biosecurity is top of mind in agriculture every day. As defined by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), biosecurity reduces the risk of people, animals, equipment, or vehicles carrying infectious diseases onto a property – either accidentally or otherwise. With the high-pathogen avian influenza (HPAI) affecting wild…

Rachel Gabel I’m considering writing a novel. In it, an area will experience explosive growth that will threaten to displace prairie dogs. Now, the prairie dogs cause damage to the land in a couple of ways and they carry diseases and fleas, but it doesn’t matter in this novel. Prairie dogs are also listed by state wildlife…

Rachel GabelLiz_Hergert The Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 was designed to ensure competition and integrity in livestock, meat and poultry markets. It was penned in an era when ranchers brought cattle on a railcar to a terminal market, like the Denver Union Stockyards Company. The cattle were sold by commission men to the various…