Colorado’s BIPOC Representation on Farmland

Prepared for Frontline Farming by Evan Gallant

Introduction

Colorado’s population is rapidly growing, having increased by 14.8% between 2010 and 2020 (Bradbury, 2021) -- a higher rate than the US’s 12.2% in the same timeframe. This rate is the 5th highest rate in the nation, with almost all growth occurring along the front range’s urban corridor (Fish, Najmabadi, and Vo, 2021). As a largely agricultural state with approximately half of the total land area dedicated to various forms of agriculture, we were curious how representative the industry has been (historically and currently) of the state’s BIPOC population (Farmland Information Center, 2021). Originally our goal was to find data describing the total number of BIPOC farmland owners at the county level - unfortunately, this data is either not available through the Cens