For six years the agricultural community of Colorado has suffered through the disrespect and unsupportive nature of Gov. Jared Polis and his office. In 2019, the governor urged the Colorado Department of Agriculture to promote the Impossible Burger. In another attack on animal agriculture, the governor took the Veterinary Medicine Board and made it a weapon of his to use against producers. One of those board members referred to ranchers as “lazy and nasty” before she issued her resignation. These instances are all in a long line that helped start the “Meat Out” events in 2021.

Colorado’s agriculture producers have hoped the governor and his office would turn the corner and work on rebuilding the relationship with agriculture. Sadly, instead of healing a deep fracture, he decided the best avenue was to make it wider. We live in a time where the citizens of Colorado are three generations removed from production agriculture. During the last couple of years, state leadership had the opportunity to heal the urban-rural divide. However, instead of attempting to fix the problem and support one of the largest economic drivers within the state, Gov. Polis attended the Colorado Counties Incorporated (CCI) meeting last week and once again pointed his finger at Colorado livestock producers and blamed them for the upcoming budget shortfalls.

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For the 2025-2026 fiscal year, the state faces a $1 billion deficit. Our governor has decided he should place the blame for the possibility of the wolf restoration project costing $5 million on the backs of hardworking ranchers.

“This could have cost a lot less if ranchers wouldn’t have said, ‘Oh, don’t get them from Wyoming, don’t get them from Idaho,’ we probably could have done it for a quarter of the cost there and there’s still time,” Polis said. “Ranchers, I mean, if their organizations — Middle Park and those guys — say to Wyoming ‘give Colorado wolves’ they probably would. The only reason they’re not is they hear from ranchers that they shouldn’t so that drives up the cost.”

To place any of the state deficit blame from the wolf re-introduction on our livestock producers is preposterous. The reintroduction process has been an expensive undertaking and has been an utter failure due to the lack of leadership from the governor’s office. In response to your outrageous comments, Mr. Governor, a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on the part of our livestock producers. If our state is to successfully reintroduce the wolves as mandated by the voters, all stakeholders must be invited to the table. This issue demands open conversation, willingness for collaboration and leadership.

Though Gov. Polis has continuously disrespected Colorado agriculture since day one of taking office, his recent statement at CCI has cemented the fact he does not support nor respect production agriculture.

Dusty A. Johnson, Fort Morgan-R, is state representative-elect of Colorado’s House District 63 serving Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington, parts of Weld, and Yuma counties.