As the holiday season settles over the Western Slope, the region’s beauty disguises a growing emergency: Families are struggling to put food on the table. High living costs, seasonal employment gaps and staggering grocery prices collide each winter, pushing more households toward the brink. Food banks from Grand Junction to Durango report rising demand as residents juggle heating bills, holiday expenses and trips across long stretches of highway just to find affordable groceries.
Food inflation is squeezing everyone nationwide, but its impact west of the Continental Divide is uniquely severe. Grocery prices have climbed 2% to 3% since January, and restaurant prices even more. For rural families in Silverton, Creede, Rangely, Collbran and Dove Creek – where full-service grocery stores may be an hour or more away – those increases are devastating. Smaller local markets charge 10% to 15% more for basic items, reflecting transportation costs and smaller customer bases. When food is already expensive and difficult to reach, a few percentage points can mean the difference between getting by and going without. But inflation alone isn’t driving the crisis. National policy – not mountain geography – is the greatest accelerant.
Trump’s tariffs have added an estimated $2,200 per year to the average American households’ costs. Rural families, including many in Western Colorado, are hit even harder – some paying twice that. These costs show up most clearly in groceries and everyday essentials. Lower wages, seasonal jobs and long commutes already stretch Western Slope households to their limits; tariff-driven inflation has pushed many into instability. A bipartisan bill, The Trade Review Act of 2025, requiring Congress to have the final authority over tariffs, was co-sponsored by Congressman Jeff Hurd despite strong opposition from the White House. The bill remains stalled in both houses of Congress.
Nonetheless, Hurd said the tariffs were a “helpful tool” while acknowledging the economic impacts on farmers, businesses and families. He never advocated for rural exemptions, economic-impact reviews or mitigation for agricultural counties like Delta, Montrose and Mesa, or for tourism-dependent communities such as San Miguel, Archuleta or La Plata.
The impact is unmistakable. Colorado’s food insecurity rate (inability to acquire sufficient food for basic needs) sits at 11.2%, but many Western Slope counties exceed that. Mesa County holds significant pockets of poverty; Montrose, Delta, Garfield, La Plata and Montezuma all report substantial need. Federal food-access maps show vast stretches of the region designated as “low access,” meaning residents live more than 10 miles from a real grocery store. In towns like Collbran and Naturita, and in remote corners of Mineral, Rio Blanco, San Miguel and San Juan counties, families rely heavily on gas stations and convenience stores where prices are higher and healthy options are limited.
Economic shocks always hit this region harder than the Front Range. But while Western Slope families absorb ever-increasing costs, Hurd has introduced no districtwide food-access plan, no major anti-hunger legislation, and no meaningful opposition to policies deepening the crisis. Instead, nonprofits – food banks, churches, homeless shelters – have shouldered the burden alone.
SNAP is the Western Slope’s most effective anti-hunger tool. Fourteen percent of households in Colorado’s 3rd District depend on it, including seniors, agricultural workers and seasonal employees whose incomes fluctuate month to month. Yet Hurd supported Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which cuts benefits and imposes strict work requirements that will remove many Western Slope residents from eligibility – even those working regularly but with unpredictable hours in tourism, ranching, farming and outdoor recreation.
Then came the 2025 government shutdown. With federal operations frozen, the USDA slashed SNAP benefits to 65% of the expected levels. Food banks saw immediate surges. Though courts eventually restored benefits after the shutdown’s 43-day ordeal, the fear it created persists. Hurd defended the shutdown as a necessary tactic and falsely blamed Democrats – ignoring the families in his district who went hungry during the standoff.
Perhaps the most damaging decision of all was Trump’s elimination of the USDA’s annual hunger report, the nation’s primary data set on food insecurity. The 2024 report will never be published. For the Western Slope – where rural areas and tribal communities, such as the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute reservations, have historically been undercounted – the loss of this data cripples efforts to secure grants, relief and targeted support. Hurd did not object as this essential tool disappeared.
The Western Slope’s hunger crisis is not natural, inevitable or unsolvable. It has been manufactured, worsened by national policies and perpetuated by a congressman unwilling to defend his constituents from the consequences of Republican policies. This region is not simply being overlooked. It is being betrayed.
Concetta C. DiRusso, Ph.D., and Paul N. Black, Ph.D., are Professors Emeritus at the University of Nebraska, Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and members of the Professional Associates at Fort Lewis College. Black is a Durango native; both live in Durango.
