This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.
Two themes are emerging from this year’s slate of agriculture proposals at the statehouse. Several bills wade into the age-old tensions of Colorado’s urban-rural divide. Meanwhile, another set of legislation suggests a bipartisan concern for the future of Colorado’s agricultural heritage.
The policies adopted under the golden dome in downtown Denver reach the farthest corners of the state. Several Republican lawmakers from rural areas say their main priorities this session involve blocking what they describe as ill-conceived legislation devised by urban lawmakers who don’t understand agricultural communities.
“All of my farmers and ranchers are the best stewards of the lands,” said Republican Representative Dusty Johnson, who represents Fort Morgan and is known as a fierce defender of rural culture and interests. “It's really scary when urban colleagues come and try to tell farmers and ranchers what to do when they've been doing this for generations.”
A rivalry between two bills seeking to set competing policies for agricultural overtime wages casts that culture gap in sharp contrast.
One bill, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jessie Danielson of Jefferson County, would lower the current threshold at which overtime pay kicks in for agricultural workers to 40 hours a week or 12 hours a day, in line with other industries in Colorado. A second bill with bipartisan sponsorship would increase that threshold to 60 hours a week.
Both bills aim to revisit a 2021 bill that became law, also sponsored by Danielson, that created the state’s first agricultural overtime policy, as agricultural labor had previously been exempt from overtime regulations that govern other sectors.
“Ag is very seasonal,” said Rep. Johnson. “There are times where we're very based on weather. You might do 14 or 15 hours one day and then not work for the next two to three days because we just had a blizzard or a ton of rain and we can't get out in the field.”
The 2021 legislation established the agricultural overtime threshold at 48 hours a week for most farmworkers and 56 hours for workers deemed “highly seasonal.”
Danielson described that as a good start, but one that was full of compromises; she hoped to rectify this year.
“Every other industry has to pay workers overtime at 40 hours a week, 12 hours a day,” she said. “These workers, they don't work any less hard … and yet they are allowed in our current statute to be paid a lot less.”
Rural Republicans argue that attitude reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of agricultural communities.
“When you start talking about paying overtime all the way down to anything above 40 hours, producers are going to either quit raising crops that require intensive labor, or they're going to not pay overtime and just get another individual at straight time rates,” said Republican Minority Leader Sen. Cleave Simpson. “They're going to find alternatives.”
But the proposal isn’t exactly the brainchild of urban elites. Danielson, after all, has deep rural roots of her own, having grown up on the family farm in Weld County. She knows the industry well and called on it to do better.
“Rural Colorado is not only land-owning business owners,” she said. “It includes a lot of different people, and farm workers are part of that too ... It's not a fundamental misunderstanding of an entire industry. It's the belief that these workers … should not be undervalued just because they work in the ag industry.”
Another pair of bills, both taking aim at pesticide regulation, also stirred up strong interest from the agriculture community.
One bill that would have put significant new restrictions on agricultural seeds treated with neonicotinoid pesticides did not clear its first-round committee hearing. Opponents from the agriculture industry argued that farmers need those chemicals to protect their crops. They were also frustrated that the bill’s crafters never included them as stakeholders when the legislation was in development.
“A lot of times when things come to agriculture, we can work within the language of a bill and make it better for the farmer, make it better for agriculture, and certainly make it better for the state,” said Marc Arnusch, a Weld County grain farmer who opposed the neonicotinoid bill. “But to just start with barriers, blockades and bans, I think, was pretty narrow-minded.”
Two Democrats, including Democratic Sen. Dylan Roberts of Frisco, joined Republicans on the committee to defeat the bill.
“I don't feel like the conversations and the engagement of both sides has happened,” Roberts said.
Meanwhile, a bill to restrict rodent-killing products passed the same committee on a party-line vote, despite similarly strong opposition that included schools, hospitals, hotels and restaurants, as well as farmers and ranchers. But that win only came after significant concessions that sharply narrowed the scope of the legislation.
“With rodenticides, we could make forward progress and still get a win,” said Democratic Sen. Cathy Kipp, a main sponsor of both bills. “The neonics, we couldn't narrow it without defeating the entire policy. It was a much harder bill to negotiate.”
Nurturing small and new farmers
Not all agriculture legislation stirs up as much passion. Colorado now leads the nation in farmland lost to development, and several measures with broad, bipartisan support are aimed at shoring up the future of farming and ranching in the state.
A proposal to expand an existing agricultural property tax break to more farmers and ranchers sailed through both chambers without a single "no” vote and is already headed to the governor’s desk. It would make land used to graze alternative animals, like chickens and pigs, eligible for tax relief previously only available to cattle ranchers.
Sen.Roberts, one of the bill’s bipartisan sponsors, said it was meant to help small producers and family farms struggling as the agricultural industry evolves and consolidates.
“They're trying to diversify their product and their livestock based on local demands and the feasibility of farming and ranching with the current climate and lack of water,” Roberts said.
Another measure would make farm and ranch conservation programs eligible for the state’s low-interest agricultural loan program.
“Conservation easements can be a tool to help get people, particularly younger farmers, less experienced farmers, into spaces at a much more affordable level,” Simpson said.
And a third proposal would establish more standards for the Colorado Proud label program, so fruits and veggies grown elsewhere couldn’t masquerade as local produce.
Both of those bills are so far moving through the legislature without friction.
