As used in this article 28, unless the context
otherwise requires:
(1) (a) Agricultural commodity means any agricultural, horticultural,
floricultural, viticultural, and vegetable products, livestock and livestock products,
wheat, hay, corn, millet, bees and honey, poultry and poultry products, and milk and
milk products, either in their natural state or as processed, including any
marketable agricultural product, but does not include sugar beets, timber and
timber products, oats, malting barley, barley, hops, rice, milo, and other feed grains.
These exceptions are the sole exemptions, irrespective of any other exemptions
provided by law, and particularly as set forth in section 35-28-122.
(b) Nothing in paragraph (a) of this subsection (1), as amended by House Bill
05-1180, as enacted at the first regular session of the sixty-fifth general assembly,
shall be construed as changing the property tax classification of property owned by
a floricultural operation.
(2) Commissioner means the commissioner of agriculture or the
commissioner's duly authorized representative.
(3) Distributor means a person engaged in the operation of selling, offering
for sale, marketing, or distributing an agricultural commodity that the person has
produced, purchased, or acquired from a producer, handler, or other distributor, or
that the person is marketing on behalf of a producer, handler, or other distributor,
whether as owner, agent, employee, broker, or otherwise. Distributor does not
include a retailer; except that distributor includes a retailer that purchases or
acquires from, or handles on behalf of a producer, handler, or other distributor an
agricultural commodity that is not subject to regulation by the marketing order
covering the commodity.
(4) Grade means the official United States or Colorado terminology applied
to agricultural commodities as determined by the presence or absence of certain
quality and other factors.
(5) Handler means any person engaged in the operation of purchasing,
packing, grading, selling, offering for sale, or marketing any marketable
agricultural product; or any person who, as the producer, owner, agent, or
otherwise, ships or causes an agricultural product to be shipped; or any
governmental entity that obtains from a producer any interest in an agricultural
commodity covered by a marketing agreement or order in connection with a
governmental agricultural commodity program. The commissioner shall have the
power to determine or specify who is a handler with respect to an agricultural
commodity under a marketing agreement or order.
(6) Marketable agricultural product is a product which meets the
requirements for regulation under any marketing order, marketing agreement, or
regulation in effect in the area in which the same is produced, handled, or
distributed.
(7) Marketing agreement means a voluntary agreement between
producers, handlers, processors, or distributors and the commissioner of
agriculture in which the producers, handlers, processors, or distributors who sign
such agreement agree to follow certain rules set forth by the agreement.
(8) Marketing order means an order issued by the commissioner of
agriculture pursuant to this article, prescribing rules and regulations governing the
processing, distributing, sale of, or handling in any manner of any agricultural
commodity in Colorado during any specified period or periods.
(9) Person means an individual, firm, corporation, association, or any other
business unit.
(10) Processor means any person engaged in the operation of producing for
processing, or in the operation of receiving, grading, packing, canning, fermenting,
distilling, extracting, preserving, grinding, crushing, or changing the form of an
agricultural product for the purpose of marketing such commodity, but shall not
include a person engaged in manufacturing from an agricultural commodity, so
changed in form, another and different product.
(11) Producer means any person engaged within this state in the business
of producing, or causing to be produced for market, any agricultural commodity.
(12) Product means an agricultural commodity which has been placed in
condition for sale or distribution.
(13) Retailer means a person that purchases or acquires an agricultural
commodity for resale at retail to the general public at a fixed business location in
the state for consumption off such premises. A retailer may also be a distributor, to
the extent that the person engages in the business of a distributor.
(14) To distribute means to engage in the business of a distributor as
defined in this section.
(15) To handle means to engage in the business of a handler as defined in
this section.
(16) To process means to engage in the business of a processor as defined
in this section.
(17) Unfair competition means the use of unfair methods of competition
and unfair or deceptive practices in business for the purpose of, or having the
natural and probable effect of, eliminating or injuring competition, and shall
include, but not be limited to: Sales below cost, except those made in good faith to
meet a legal price of a competitor; discriminatory pricing; discriminatory
discounting and rebating, either direct or indirect; unreasonable extensions of
credit; subsidizing of customers; misleading labeling or advertising; and solicitation
by misleading or false statements.