Kate Greenberg

Commissioner, Colorado Department of Agriculture

Keynote speaker for CMC Steamboat Springs

Kate Greenberg was appointed to serve as Colorado’s first female commissioner of agriculture by Gov. Jared Polis in December 2018. As commissioner, Greenberg provides leadership and direction to the Colorado Department of Agriculture and its over 300 employees. Greenberg has worked in agriculture for more than 12 years, from farming to advocating for family farmers and ranchers through two federal farm bills.

Prior to her appointment, Greenberg worked for six years at the National Young Farmers Coalition, where she most recently served as the western program director. At NYFC she organized farmers and ranchers to advocate for state and federal policy reform. Her work focused on farmland affordability and equitable access, ag education, protecting water for agriculture, and expanding access to capital and credit for young and beginning producers.

Leading up to her tenure at NYFC, Greenberg farmed on various operations across the West, managed Western policy field programs through her alma mater, Whitman College, and worked in natural resource education and restoration from eastern Washington to Mexico’s Colorado River Delta. Greenberg also worked on the Colorado Water Plan and Colorado River Basin water policy, advocating for policies that keep water in agriculture.

Greenberg is the recipient of the Emerging Conservation Leader Award from Western Resource Advocates and an awardee of the 2019 Who’s Who in Agriculture recognition from Colorado Farm Bureau and the Denver Business Journal. She graduated from Water Education Colorado’s Water Leaders flagship course in 2018 and sits on the board of the Quivira Coalition, which brings ranchers, scientists and conservationists together to practice land stewardship at the radical center.

In 2016 she founded an all-female wilderness group called Wild Streak that leveraged a women’s backcountry canoe trip to raise money for young girls to get into wild places. Life has been big since that trip and the group hasn’t gotten back out (yet!), but they continue to elevate the importance of female leadership and self-reliance in wild places.

As commissioner, Greenberg serves on numerous boards and commissions, including the Colorado Water Conservation Board, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and the Colorado State Fair Board. While she currently spends much of her time on Colorado’s Front Range and traveling the state, she still calls Durango, Colorado, home.