Tariffs Squeeze American Farmers

Stories
1

This is a poignant and potent short documentary regarding the current farm crisis. What can we imagine the solution to be :thinking: ?!

2

This is something to look into in terms of farm equipment. What would it look like to build local capacity? Are there machine shops that would be willing to work on this?

In terms of fertilizer and seeds… I don’t know if you can have that kind of monocrop approach and not be beholden to these big corporations in the long run. But there are people that know far more about that than me. I know we have a number of different seed growers around here but I don’t know what kinds of volumes they produce at.

I’m also hearing that the person in the video is engaged in a mode of farming that’s very debt based.

Who could we talk to to find out if this is a problem locally? Maybe conducting a survey to find out where we are at in terms of types of agriculture, types of inputs being used, level of debt. Are there organizations already that collect and report on this?

@Beefbeesbitcoin clue us in Jason, I bet you know where to find some of this.

3

Unfortunately since WWII we have focused on specialization. It used to be 40 acres and a mule. Very diverse and very resilient. Most commercial ag is anti mother nature. We can still be resilient, just need to focus on being a generalist instead of specialist in general farming practices. We could survive on meat alone which doesn’t need seed at all. Shiny metal is the trap of farming and ranching.

4

Here’s a response from ChatGPT that suggests some directions we could take to understand current trends. I don’t have time to follow up on all these threads right away, but they seem like great starting points.

Short answer: yes — there are public data sources you can use to quantify agriculture trends on Colorado’s Western Slope (farm counts, commodities, irrigation, organics, farm size, value of sales, etc.). Below are the best places to pull the numbers and the indicators you should track to answer the vulnerability / industrial vs. regenerative question.

Best public data sources

  • USDA NASS — Census of Agriculture / County Profiles — full county-level tables (farm size, value of sales, irrigation, organics, specialty crops). Use the 2022 County Profiles for Mesa, Delta, Montrose, Garfield, Routt, etc. National Agricultural Statistics Service+1

  • USDA NASS Colorado statistical bulletins (annual) — state-level summaries and trends (2023/2024 bulletins). National Agricultural Statistics Service+1

  • Colorado State University Extension / DARE reports — regional analysis, water/forage impacts, adaptation & regenerative agriculture research. Recent RAISE reports focus on Upper Colorado Basin issues. College of Agricultural Sciences+1

  • Colorado Department of Agriculture — Western Slope coverage & news (regulatory, pest status, program updates). Colorado Department of Agriculture

  • Regional studies / outreach orgs — NWCCOG headwaters reports and regional posters (drought impacts, forage declines, adaptive needs). NWCCOG • NWCCOG+1

  • Local journalism / sector pieces — coverage of greenhouse operations, regenerative movements and supply-chain stories on the Western Slope. (example: Spring Born greenhouse / regenerative articles). Water Education Colorado+1

What to look for (metrics that indicate industrial vs resilient / permaculture systems)

  1. Market value by commodity — high % of commodity/livestock sales suggests integration into wider markets (more supply-chain exposure). (available in NASS county profile tables). National Agricultural Statistics Service

  2. Farm size distribution & number of large operations — concentration (many large acreages) correlates with industrial systems; many small holdings suggests potential for diversified / direct-market farms. National Agricultural Statistics Service

  3. Irrigated acreage and water-use data — irrigation dependence and source (Colorado River / groundwater) is a major vulnerability axis for Western Colorado. CSU and state reports track this. College of Agricultural Sciences+1

  4. Percent organic / certified operations & local food marketing — the Census includes “organics” and local-food / direct-market surveys (shows presence of permaculture/regenerative producers). National Agricultural Statistics Service

  5. Presence of controlled-environment agriculture / greenhouses — greenhouse/vertical farming companies reduce water and supply-chain exposure (example coverage exists). Water Education Colorado

  6. Inputs / supply chain indicators — feedlot counts, fertilizer/pesticide purchases, reliance on off-site processing (slaughterhouses, packing) — these require combining NASS with USDA/industry data and local producer surveys. National Agricultural Statistics Service

  7. Labor & seasonal worker statistics — dependence on migrant/seasonal labor increases supply-chain/social vulnerability (some tracked in state reports / extension surveys). National Agricultural Statistics Service

Quick interpretation of publicly visible trends (what the data and recent reports show)

  • Western Colorado remains heavily livestock/ranching + specialty fruit/vegetable in many counties (large role of cattle/livestock in state totals). Census and county profiles back this up. Colorado GIS+1

  • Water stress & drought are driving adaptation (changes to forage, conservation programs, shifts to water-efficient systems). CSU RAISE and regional studies document these pressures. That pushes some producers toward water-efficient greenhouses or different crops. College of Agricultural Sciences+1

  • There’s a growing regenerative / small-scale movement (case studies and local press), but industrial-scale operations and commodity/regional supply-chain links remain important — so exposure is mixed across the landscape. SPOKE+BLOSSOM+1

Practical next steps / how you’d quantify “vulnerability”

  1. Pull county NASS Census tables (2022) for target counties: market value by commodity, farms by size, irrigation, organics, local food marketing. (these are downloadable PDFs/tables). National Agricultural Statistics Service+1

  2. Combine with CSU Extension/RAISE and local water authority reports to map water-risk vs crop/livestock types. College of Agricultural Sciences+1

  3. Use Cropland Data Layer / remote sensing + county parcel data to estimate crop diversity and presence of high-intensity monocrops vs diversified small farms.

  4. Survey local processors/packinghouses and major buyers (where present) to measure single-point-of-failure dependence (slaughterhouses, distributor hubs).

  5. For resilience indicators: measure % direct-to-consumer sales, % certified organic, % diversified enterprises (CSA, mixed livestock/crops), presence of controlled-environment farms.

If you want, I can

  • pull the 2022 Census tables for a specific Western Colorado county (Mesa, Delta, Montrose, Montrose, Garfield, Routt, etc.) and extract the key metrics listed above; or

  • produce a short vulnerability checklist and data pull script (CSV fields + NASS table IDs) so you can reproduce it.

Tell me which counties you care about (or say “Western Slope aggregate”) and I’ll extract the relevant NASS tables and CSU reports now.