Colorado has around 150 commemorative and specialty license plates. In 2025, two new plates joined the mix: one raising awareness for the state’s agriculture industry and one celebrating its Chicana/o community. 

Both new plates came from citizen-led efforts and went through the 2024 legislative process to become official. 

For the agricultural plate, the Logan County Cattlewomen, a group from Northeast Colorado, had the idea and collected over 4,000 signatures.

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Britt Pratt, the group’s co-founder, said the reason was simple: “There is a license plate for pretty much anything you want in Colorado except for an ag plate.”  

Agriculture is one of Colorado’s largest industries, generating around $47 billion annually in economic activity, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture. This alone was the reason it deserved representation among the state’s offerings, Pratt added.  

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While petitioners for new plates can choose an organization to receive donations from the plate sales, Logan County Cattlewoman went a different direction. None of the one-time funds raised from the plate will go to the group or any other organizations, but rather to the state’s highway users fund, which supports road infrastructure, and the DRIVES vehicle services account, which supports the license plate program. 

According to Pratt, while the group could designate that the money would go toward agriculture education, after the first five years, the state bids out the plate and determines who would benefit from the funds. 

“We had no say on where that money would go after the first five years,” Pratt said, adding that because it would be up to the state, wolf introduction nonprofits or wildlife advocacy groups could receive the funds claiming to be agriculture education. 

“We didn’t do it to make money. That wasn’t our goal with this plate,” Pratt said. “Our goal was ag awareness and to bring a neat plate to the people of Colorado that represents agriculture.”

The license plate — which was designed by Amy Roup from Southpaw Creative — features a photo of a cow with the tagline: “Feeding the World.” 

It represents just one of several messages that Pratt and the Logan County group hope Coloradans will see with the plate. 

“Agriculture gets a bad rap sometimes because our news is driven from Denver and urban areas, and they have a negative connotation of agriculture, and we’re just not that way out here,” Pratt said. “When people see that license plate, I hope they realize that you know we are humans.

We are real people. We are families. Without ag production and family farms and ranches, your food doesn’t exist.”

Colorado estimates that the agriculture industry employs over 195,000 people. For all these individuals, Pratt hopes the plate offers an opportunity to share pride in their work.

“We are very proud of what we produce as a community, as a state,” Pratt said. “The agriculture plate is one way we could show Colorado that we love doing what we do.” 

Pride is also at the heart of the other new license plate Colorado started selling in the new year.

The Chicana/o plate — designed by Alamosa artist Larysa Medina and Denver artist Anthony Garcia Sr. — features two hands clasping in front of a traditional woven blanket, or serape, pattern alongside roses and an orange and yellow sunburst with the tagline “Chicana/o Power!” 

The effort to get the Chicana/o plate was led by the Pueblo-based nonprofit, El Movimiento Sigue, to celebrate Colorado’s community of Mexican Americans. The group collected well over the necessary signatures in just two days. Applicants are required to make a $50 donation to the organization to support its youth programming around the state. 

Specifically, to “fund and expand its youth leadership programs, youth violence prevention programs, ethnic studies programs, facilitate access to higher education, and increase the cultural, social and economic wellbeing of the Chicana/o community in Colorado,” according to the website created for the license plate.  

Two $25 fees are distributed to the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles, one for the highway users tax fund and one to the DRIVES vehicle services account. 

Following unsuccessful attempts in 2016 and 2018, this was the third time a Chicano plate came before legislators. In a December editorial in La Cucaracha News, Joe Salazar, a former state representative who sponsored the prior two efforts, stated that “the journey of the Chicano License Plate legislation mirrors the same hardships our community has had to endure throughout the generations,” requiring persistence until victorious. 

“Somos Chicanas/os. We are proud of who we are, what our community has overcome, the fact that we still exist, and we resist and succeed despite all odds,” Salazar stated. “Imagine how a little license plate can represent so much.”