Willie Myers

Potato Farmer, Mountain Valley Produce

Del Norte, CO

October 23, 2024

We’re swimming in statistics: wells pump 800 gallons per minute, 50 million potatoes sit in a shed, and an 8000-foot-deep aquifer runs under layers of stratified sediment. Willie Myers, a sixth-generation farmer whose family has tended this land for over 150 years, speaks quickly as numbers flow from his lips. It seems his brain operates in zeros and ones. 

At 7,500 feet above sea level, Mountain Valley Produce sits in the high desert of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. In a valley of methodically constructed crop circles, he owns just twelve. Due to the ever-variable economics of farming, Willie consolidated his operation to focus on producing organic potatoes: fingerlings, purples, yellows, and russets.

While Willie’s parents lived by the adage “The trashcan is just as good a customer as any,” producing over all else, he takes a different approach. A $30,000 monthly water bill and environmental lawsuits targeting his farm push him to think in terms of water scarcity. Willie involves himself in water conservation working groups where he deciphers convoluted water policy and envisions a sustainable future for farmers. Water is limited, yet water is life.

In America, where oligopolies run consumer markets and smaller farmers “perpetually gamble” in our continuously changing climate, the future of farming is grim. Willie says matter-of-factly, “I’m not terribly optimistic about the future. I do it because it’s in my blood.” 

by Ava Frans