Colorado State University Celebrates 19th Ag Day with Feast, Football and Fun on September 9

Colorado State University will celebrate the state’s agricultural industry Sept. 9 with a barbeque, band, live radio broadcast and football game.

The 19th annual celebration begins at 1 p.m. at Hughes Stadium on Overland Trail between Drake Road and Prospect Street and offers the best of Colorado’s meats, vegetables, fruits, bread and drinks.

The televised football game begins at 3 p.m. and pits the Rams against East Tennessee State University.

Activities celebrating Colorado agriculture will be broadcast live this year by WUAD-FM (K99-FM). A country band will entertain as well. Agriculture is the second largest industry in Colorado, providing more than 86,000 jobs and producing more than $4.4 billion in agricultural sales. The growing tradition of Ag Day, presented jointly by state agricultural organizations and Colorado State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences and Department of Intercollegiate Athletics, features a variety of displays about farming, ranching and related subjects.

The Ag Day barbecue, located in the parking lot south of Hughes Stadium, will offer apples, beans, beef, beer, cheese, ice cream, lamb, melons, milk, pork, potatoes, sugar, sweet corn and wheat bread. Participants can pick up a greenhouse-grown Colorado plant after their meal.

Colorado’s agricultural and ranching achievements include:

  • apples, the state’s major fruit crop with sales centered on the Western Slope;
  • five million bushels of malting barley grown for Coors, world’s largest single-site brewery;
  • nearly 80 percent of commercial beans grown in the country and more than 90 percent of seed beans;
  • ranking as fourth major cattle-feeding state and 10th in the country for all cattle and calves, with inventory estimated at 3.2 million head;
  • ranking as fourth in the United States in number of sheep and lambs;
  • flavorful melons, the products of warm days, cool nights and well-drained, sandy soils;
  • dairy cows that produce an average of 2,260 gallons of milk annually;
  • a greenhouse industry that ranks first in the nation in greenhouse tomato production (57 million pounds each year);
  • more than 2.5 million pigs as of last spring;
  • potato production, first in the nation for summer potatoes and fourth overall;
  • production of more than 50 million ears of Colorado-developed Olanthe sweet corn;
  • 72,230 acres of sugar beets, yielding about 21 tons of beets per acre; and
  • hard red winter wheat, good for bread and the most economically viable crop in two-thirds of the state’s eastern counties.

And, while the beverage won’t be available at the barbecue, Colorado has the second-fastest growing wine industry in the United States. Tickets are advance-sale only and cost $10 per person for the Ag Day barbecue ticket or $25 per person for the barbecue and football game. Tickets may be picked up in Room 127 Shepardson Hall or at the Ag Day Will-Call Tent south of Hughes Stadium on Sept. 9. (A separate, $5 parking fee is payable at the lot only.)

For credit-card phone orders, call (970) 491-2246. Checks should be made payable to CSU Ag Day 2000. Football tickets may be purchased separately from the Athletic Ticket Office by calling (970) 491-RAMS.