The water is vanishing.

The developers are hungry.

And the kids might not want to carry on their family’s farming tradition.

The U.S. loses about 2,000 acres of land each day, according to Palmer Land Conservancy, a Colorado Springs nonprofit that works to protect the land. Some of that loss is to the south of us in Pueblo, where farmers fret about losing their land and its rich soil ideal for growing vegetables, among them the mirasol pepper, a Mexican chile pepper Pueblo is famous for.

The new documentary “Mirasol,” produced by Palmer Land Conservancy and directed by award-winning filmmaker Ben Knight, delves into Pueblo’s agricultural community and the reasons farmers hover in a precarious state, including loss of water, development, population growth, climate change and competing economies.

The Colorado Springs premiere of the film, along with a panel discussion featuring Knight, food and entertainment, is Tuesday at Ent Center for the Arts.

Knight’s intention for the film was simple: to remind people how special and fragile their backyards are and how easy it is to take these hubs of agriculture for granted because it seems like they’ve always been there and always will be there.

“But when you look closer, it’s a fragile landscape, as far as the resources go,” he said. “They have barely enough water to get it done and as the land starts to disappear the beautiful rich soil disappears, too, and there’s no way to get it back. It took a long time to grow soil that well. And if we keep drying it up and covering it in cul-de-sacs, there won’t be farmland anymore.”

At the heart of the film is Mike Bartolo, a retired Colorado State University agriculture professor who lives in Rocky Ford. Every year he grows new strains of chiles and gives them to farmers to try, hoping to make drought- and pest-resistant peppers.

“Most people credit him for the genetics of the Pueblo chile,” Knight said. “That place means a great deal to him. He’s the one fighting to protect it and showing up at the county commissioner meetings to speak against development of farmland. It broke my heart to see he’s the only one who shows up for meetings. My biggest wish is after more people see the film maybe he won’t be the only one there.”

It’s at these county commissioner meetings where the future of Pueblo’s farming community is decimated or preserved one vote at a time. Knight gives the example of a farming family that decides to sell their land, maybe because the younger generations don’t want to keep it. A developer buys it and goes to the county commissioners to get permission to dig wells and sewer systems and put houses on the land, turning it into a neighborhood.

Bartolo tries to work with Pueblo County and its commissioners to make sure they’re protecting as much farmland as possible and to be critical when it comes to development. He’s not unrealistic when it comes to growth, Knight says. He knows the appeal of living in an area that’s quiet and verdant with water flowing through its canals.

“Mike isn’t trying to stop all development, but make them notice if they approve every single development that comes through it’s not going to go well,” Knight said. “Farmland will go away. It’s not shocking people would want to live out there, but we have to remember what’s most important.”

Farmers are not only worried about water and lack of rain, but also about water allocation and water rights being sold off to other Colorado municipalities, Knight says. They also wonder if younger generations will want to keep the family farm or if they’ll decide to sell the water rights. After all, farming is a hard road with not a lot of return. It requires a certain level of passion.

“Downstream municipalities, and especially in the Front Range, are always looking to buy water rights,” Knight said.

“When a family decides to sell a farm, that also comes with water rights and it’s worth a ton of money. A developer will sell rights to the municipality. He doesn’t need them because they can dig wells for houses. Water rights get sold off and used for cities, so those rights are gone.”

Contact the writer: 636-0270