On the fifty acres of the Kilt Farm, Michael Moss is letting his fields recover by going fallow this year. And he’s thinking about continuing farming.
“If it’s going to be elitist, if it’s going to be so small and so expensive, the numbers just stop working out. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.” Moss is referring to the county’s rising minimum wage. In 2025, it’s $16.57 an hour. But ahead are steep percentage increases. By 2030, unincorporated Boulder County will have a minimum wage of $25 an hour.
His organic farm is small. Only 50 acres.
“We don’t have the efficiencies of scale. You know 60 different types of vegetables. You know we may have a block of carrots and right next to it is a block of beans, and we have our tomatoes,” he explained. “So we don’t have the opportunity to use big equipment. We use our hands. We bring in a lot of labor.”…