WSP10065

• File Number: 8149.100
• Description: Miscellaneous Small Projects and Project Studies - NRCS-Ft Lyon Canal Co Limsetone Graveyard Creeks
• State: CO
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 2
• Date: 3/1/1991
• Author: CSU
• Title: Colorados Farm and Food System - Farm and Agribusiness Contributions to the Colorado Economy
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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Dependency on Agribusiness 9

Degree of Dependency on
Agribusiness

Farm income shown in Table 1
refers only to labor and proprietor
income from production on farms and
ranches, This farm industry concept is
used by the D,S, Department of
Agriculture in identifying farm de-
pendent counties CD, However, using
only the farm production sector to
measure the economic importance of
agriculture overlooks the interdepend-
ence between production agriculture
and other businesses involved in
agribusiness. Recognition of some of
these sector linkages by identifying
agribusiness dependent and
agribusiness important counties
provides additional information on
the economic contribution of agricul-
ture,
The same general definition may
be applied to agribusiness dependent
and agribusiness important counties
as used before to designate farm
dependent and farm important
counties. Those counties receiving
more than 20 percent of total income
from agribusiness activities (farm
supply, production agriculture, and
agricultural processing) are classified
as agribusiness dependent counties,
Counties receiving between 10 and 20
percent of their total labor and
proprietor income from agribusiness
are designated as agribusiness
important.
Figure 6 shows the location of
agribusiness dependent and agribusi-
ness important counties in the state,
Five counties previously classed as
farm important (Morgan, Rio Grande,
Delta, Bent, and Otero) join the other
17 farm dependent counties for a total
of 22 counties in the agribusiness
dependent group. Five counties
previously falling under the "other
nonmetropolitan" category (Archuleta,
Logan, Montezuma, Montrose, and
Weld) are now included in the
agribusiness important classification.
Thus, over 52 percent of the counties
in Colorado fall in the categories of
agribusiness dependent and agribusi-
ness important

Table 3 shows the labor and
proprietor income data, ordered by
the importance of agribusiness
income, In the 22 counties classed as
agribusiness dependent, the agribusi-
ness sector provided $571.5 million
(41.1 percent) of the total labor and
proprietor income of $1 A billion, In
the 11 counties classified as agribusi-
ness important, agribusiness ac-
counted for $268.3 million of the total
income of $1.8 billion, or 14,8 per-
cent Figure 7 provides a graphic
representation of the importance of
agribusiness labor and proprietor
income for each county in Colorado,
In total, the farm and food system
accounted for 47.3 percent of the total
income in the agribusiness dependent
counties and 19,8 percent of the total
income in agribusiness important
counties in 1987,

Employment in Agribusiness
Dependent and Agribusiness
Important Counties

Appendix Table A-2 presents the
data on employment for the agribusi-
ness dependent, agribusiness impor-
tant, other nonmetropolitan, and
metropolitan counties, In the 22
agribusiness dependent counties,
agribusiness employed 20,709 work-
ers or 45 percent of the 22 county
total employment of 46,II3, Agribusi-
ness employed an additional 20,202
workers in the II agribusiness
important counties or more than 29
percent of the total 69,416 employed
in these counties, In the other non-
metropolitan counties, agribusiness
employed 4,84 percent of the total
while in the metropolitan counties,
this sector employed 32,600 workers
or 3.32 percent of the total.

Figure 6: Agribusiness dependent and important counties, 1987.

. Agribusiness Dependent m Agribusiness Important Q Other Nonmetro