Colorado Network: Western Slope orchardist relies on temporary migrant workers | News [Video]

PALISADE • To be a farmer in any era is to live, unsteadily, with constant change.

On rural Colorado’s small family farms one thing is certain: the landscape of agriculture is shifting. And the tenuous balance is in for a new test as promises of mass deportations threaten to wipe out the labor force that small and large operations rely on to survive.

When Bruce Talbott began farming his family’s orchards in Palisade on the Western Slope, he used a shovel and tarps to irrigate vast acres of Standard Alberta apple trees. Now, it’s sprinkler irrigation and world-famous peaches. Apples were a profitable product — until they weren’t.

“The large growers can supply year-round, but we had to quit apples,” Talbott said. “Our current labor environment favors larger operators. Though we pine for the diversified family farm, the regulations and the labor requirements are causing it to go away.”

And …