Colorado Revised Statutes Title 23. Postsecondary Education § 23-31-707. Colorado AgrAbility project--extension program--creation--appropriation--legislative declaration

(1) The general assembly finds that Colorado should expand the Colorado AgrAbility project by providing funding for the project's rural rehabilitation specialists with the goal of informing, educating, and assisting farmers, ranchers, and farm workers with disabilities and their families so they can continue to have successful careers in agriculture.

(2) Colorado state university shall implement and administer the Colorado AgrAbility project, referred to in this section as the “AgrAbility project”, in cooperation with the federal government pursuant to the “Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990”, as amended. Colorado state university shall expand the AgrAbility project by providing rural rehabilitation specialists with funding to provide information, services, and research-based, stress-assistance information, education, suicide prevention training, and referrals to behavioral health-care services to farmers, ranchers, agricultural workers, and their families to mitigate incidences of harmful responses to stress experienced by these individuals. Rural rehabilitation specialists shall be culturally responsive and trauma-informed.

(3) For the 2021--22 fiscal year, and each fiscal year thereafter, the general assembly shall annually appropriate nine hundred thousand dollars to Colorado state university for the AgrAbility project to expand behavioral health education and services pursuant to subsection (2) of this section.

(4) Nothing in this section prevents Colorado state university from complying with federal requirements for the AgrAbility project in order for Colorado state university to qualify for federal funds under the federal “Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990”, as amended.