By Shaun Boyd
Click here for updates on this story
COLORADO (KCNC) — The latest survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows Colorado has lost more farmland than any other state in the country. Between 2017 and 2022, the state lost 1.6 million acres of farmland – a 5% decrease.
Agriculture is the second biggest economic driver in Colorado. It generates $47 billion a year and supports 195,000 jobs. But the industry is shrinking as commodity prices stagnate, costs soar, and the supply of workers plummets.
Many farmers say state policies have only added to the headwinds. Some of them are now turning to artificial intelligence for help. The Fagerberg family farm in Northern Colorado is among them. The Fagerberg family began farming 145 years ago. Today, they have the largest onion farm in the state and one of the more high-tech operations. They have probes that tell how much water a plant needs, sensors to measure humidity and air quality, weather stations, and pesticide sprayers that use artificial intelligence to discern what’s a plant and what’s a weed.
Farm Manager Brian King went before the State Water Quality and Agriculture Committee to explain how the sprayers work, “You can see those nozzles actually turning on and off individually as the camera tells the algorithm what to do. It scans, analyzes, and sprays in under 250 milliseconds.”
King says the Ecorobotix ARA sprayer has reduced the amount of pesticide they need by 91% on the 3,000-acre onion farm. While it’s not cheap – $300,000 for a sprayer and $11,000 a year for licensing of the algorithms – he says it’s a necessity these days.
A shortage of farm workers is forcing many farmers to automate or liquidate. The state lost nearly 3,000 farms between 2017 and 2022, according to the USDA, and that’s before the immigration crackdown and trade war.
King says state policies are hurting farmers even more.
He points to a recent law that requires Colorado farmers to pay overtime after 48 hours, “That was a worker safety concern. What it ended up doing is it’s hurting workers’ pockets.”
He says Fagerberg has paid for workers’ Visas only to have them leave for states with no overtime.
Another misfire, he says, is a new rule requiring a certain square footage of shade per worker. He spent $56,000 on specialized shade trailers, “The workers can’t stand them. I think there are a lot of policies that have been put in place in this Capitol that haven’t been thought all the way through on the farm side.”
King says Colorado’s loss of farms is Mexico’s gain. He says Colorado used to have 30,000 acres of onions and now has just 3,000 acres. Meanwhile, onion farming is growing in Mexico.
State Senator Byron Pelton, a rancher in Morgan County, is pushing to roll back some of the laws, “We’re getting slammed on every single side.”
He says fewer farms means more imported food and higher prices, “This state used to be an agriculture mecca, and it’s getting bashed by this legislature every day.
And it could get worse. The state is now considering limiting emissions from farm equipment and further regulating pesticides.
“Between commodity prices, between pesticide regulations, between labor regulations, I don’t know what else I could put on my worry plate,” says King.
The Colorado Farm Bureau and Colorado Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association are also worried about the number of farmers who will soon be retiring. The USDA says the average age of farmers in Colorado is 58, and the average net farm income is about $51,000.
This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate partner and does not contain original CNN reporting.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
