Pelton's SB 79 passes Senate & ag committee; heads to House for debate

Representative Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells, is close to seeing his first bill of the 2021 session on its way to the Governor’s office, on allowing direct sales of meat to consumers.

Senate Bill 79 will allow livestock producers to sell shares of their livestock directly to consumers, bypassing United States Department of Agriculture inspections, among other things. 

During the COVID shutdown, we found issues in the supply chain, and while this won’t solve it, it’ll help local producers sell shares in their livestock to consumers. This isn’t a new practice, he told the House Agriculture, Livestock and Water Committee on March 17, but this bill will make it legal. 

Rep. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, said in his area, people are making calls to find out where they can buy half a cow. The consumers are very pleased, because they get a chance to say how that livestock would be processed, as well as impressed by the quality, Catlin said. Rep. Don Valdez, D-La Jara, said local producers say they’re backed up a year on processing, which this bill would help alleviate. 

The bill applies to cattle, calves, sheep, elk, hogs, rabbits, bison and goats. It excludes fish and chicken.

Alan Lewis of Natural Grocers said the pandemic has exposed gaps in the supply chain. SB 79 changes the game since producers can safely slaughter their livestock and sell directly to engaged and informed consumers. Allowing direct sales will provide an important reliable source of beef to consumers, better income to producers and help bridge the rural-urban divide, he said.

Wyoming passed a similar law last year.

SB 79, which previously passed the Senate on a 34-0 vote, won a unanimous vote from the House ag committee and is now awaiting debate in the full House. 

The bill allowing farm workers to unionize, to be paid for overtime and to ban the use of short-handled hoes was approved on a party-line vote by the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee, also on March 17. But it doesn’t have the full support of the Polis administration, as evidenced by testimony from Commissioner of Agriculture Kate Greenberg.

Senate Bill 87 would remove the exemption for agricultural workers from Colorado Labor and Peace Act. That would allow the State’s almost 40,000 farmworkers to organize and join labor unions, even on a farm with just one worker; be paid overtime for more than 40 hours per week or more than 12 hours per day; require employers to provide transportation once a week to “key service providers,” such as lawyers and health care services, and set up whistleblower protections. The bill also sets up a committee to monitor practices, with six of the nine members representing farm workers.

The bill is opposed by most major ag organizations, including Colorado Farm Bureau, the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, wheat and sugar beet growers, the livestock association, the Colorado Chamber of Commerce and the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce.

During testimony on March 17, Greenberg said her department cannot support the bill without major amendments, citing the bill’s provisions on relators, unions, overtime and the potential impact on small farms.

The section on relators has been particularly irksome to the ag industry. One farmer likened relators to bounty hunters, who would go to farms to look for violations. Relators would be eligible for up to 35 percent of the fine levied on farms, which could go as high as $10,000.

The bill’s sponsor, Senator Jessie Danielson, D-Wheat Ridge, has been accused of shutting out input from the ag industry, which she denied during the hearing. Danielson, whose family has had a farm near Ault for several generations, said she had “invited” input from the ag groups but according to those groups that wasn’t until after the bill was drafted. SB87 has backing from several labor unions, including AFL-CIO and progressive organizations such as Conservation Colorado and the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.

The committee approved an amendment to remove the relator’s section. Greenberg said her department would revisit its position if the bill was “substantially” amended; the amendment did not address the other issues raised by Greenberg in her testimony.

The bill’s timing is problematic for Democrats, in the midst of ongoing tensions between the ag industry and the Polis administration over the Governor’s stance on vegan alternatives to beef, the appointment of an animal rights activist to the state veterinarian board who has badmouthed the ag industry and 4-H; and appointing Greenberg as commissioner of ag. Greenberg has no significant experience in production agriculture, the first commissioner in decades who has not come from the farm or ranch.

SB 87 is now awaiting action from the Senate Appropriations Committee, given an estimated state cost of more than $400,000.

A voluntary program on soil health is scheduled for its first hearing this week in the House ag committee. House Bill 1181 sets up the voluntary program within the Department of Agriculture. The program would establish a grant program for soil health activities, a system for monitoring the environmental or economic benefits of soil health practices; a state soil health inventory and platform; a soil health testing program; and other programs to promote soil health practices.

However, the bill does not provide money for the grant program and only $4,464 for an advisory committee tied to the bill, which then requires the ag department to fund the program out of its existing resource or to seek gifts, grants and donations. Bills with that latter requirement rarely raise enough money to effectively fund activites.

Wednesday, March 24 is Colorado Ag Day at the state Capitol. Activities, including presentations, will be virtual due to the pandemic The Colorado Ag Council, which hosts the annual event, intends to prepare crafted box lunches for lawmakers that day.