Growing Interest-Local Foods Gain Fans in Colorado

Each week from mid-June to mid-December, Laurie Brock and her family enjoy a delivery of fresh produce from a Colorado farm in which she is an investor.

Where many supermarket vegetables and fruits travel hundreds or thousands of miles from field to store, Brock’s produce comes from Wellington, only 60 miles away, to a delivery point just blocks from her Denver home. And where big commercial agricultural operations use tons of oil-based fertilizers and chemical pesticides, Brock’s veggies are grown organically by Grant Family Farms, the first farm to be certified organic in the state.

“What’s nice is you’re having local foods and you’re trying to do something about your carbon footprint,” says Brock, an information and publishing consultant. As she has learned more about the huge amount of oil consumed to produce and transport conventional foodstuffs, Brock also is trying to buy locally produced foods at the supermarket and has expanded her vegetable garden.

Across Colorado, people like Brock are turning to local foods – their own or Colorado growers’. Farmers markets, gardening classes and community supported agriculture projects are booming. While some people are motivated to garden to save money or to buy local produce for nutritional reasons, a significant number see local food as a weapon against global warming.

“Clearly, we have to take some pretty dramatic steps to reduce our carbon emissions,” says Michael Brownlee, co-founder and catalyst of Boulder County Going Local (www.bouldercountygoinglocal.com), an alliance dedicated to making communities more resilient and self-sufficient. “It turns out that focusing on the local, especially on local foods, is one of the most efficient ways to do that.”

The alliance is about to publish its second resource guide to connect local producers and consumers, and hopes to launch an “eat local” restaurant association in the Boulder area as well as continuing to offer classes and lectures.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service says that commercial food production has globalized in the past 50 years so that shoppers, wherever they live, can easily buy Chilean grapes or Dutch peppers as well as California and Florida produce. While estimates vary, the service figures that the food industry accounts for about 10 percent of the nation’s fossil fuel use.

The summer’s salmonella outbreak made many people aware of how far their food travels and prompted more Coloradans to grow their own, notes Meg Wilson, assistant director of community relations for the Colorado State University Extension. The Extension’s master gardeners are fielding more questions about raising vegetables than ever before, and its canning and food preservation classes are in high demand.

Interest in Denver Urban Gardens, a non-profit that transforms derelict lots into flourishing community gardens, has grown to the point that DUG maintains a waiting list of people who want plots in its 80 metro-area gardens, says Michael Buchenau, executive director. While people typically come to DUG because they want fresh, nutritious food or the physicality of gardening, they often develop an appreciation of local gardening’s environmental benefits.

“They realize there is a greater potential than the nutritional value of the food they grow. It didn’t have to be transported thousands of miles, using fuel and releasing carbon dioxide,” Buchenau says.

DeLaney Farm, DUG’s community supported agriculture project in cooperation with the city of Aurora, sold out its 2008 shares in February, says manager Heather DeLong. Some 55 families pick up weekly allotments of produce from mid-June to mid-October at the 3.5-acre farm, launched 11 years ago. In addition to paying $500 for a full share or $300 for a half-share in the farm, each person agrees to work there – planting, mulching, weeding, watering and harvesting – for a few hours a month.

“We are liaisons between the earth and people,” says Deborah Schaffer, operations coordinator. Nothing goes to waste: Surplus food is donated to a variety of community organizations.

There are other ways to “eat local” besides gardening. The Colorado Department of Agriculture sponsors the Colorado Proud program, which identifies statemade or grown products in restaurants, farmers markets and groceries. Its membership jumped by 200 this year, the largest increase since the program’s inception in 1999, says Wendy White, marketing specialist. The department also tracks farmers markets, which have increased to 90 this year from 54 in 2002, she says.

And consumers don’t even have to leave home to eat locally. The Rocky Mountain Farmers Union has started the High Plains Food Co-operative (www.highplainsfood.org) to link northeastern Colorado and northwestern Kansas producers with Front Range consumers.

For a $100 membership fee and 10 percent shipping fee, consumers can order from hundreds of products, ranging from eggs to meats to wheat to produce, on the Internet. Orders must be placed by the second Thursday of each month; the third Thursday, producers take turns ferrying orders to Denver for pickup. Sales more than doubled between the first and second months of operation, says Ben Rainbolt, director of the co-op development center.

Since products travel roughly 200 miles at the most to consumer, “that’s a lot of energy savings,” Rainbolt notes. “Plus, we’re trying to provide some sustainability to keep these farmers on the farm and producing.”

Be Ready for Next Summer

Grow Your Own
If you don’t have a vegetable garden, scout your yard for good sunny spots, or plan to garden in large containers or decorative pots. Many garden stores, Denver Urban Gardens (www.dug.org) and the Colorado State University Extension (www.ext.colostate.edu) offer classes or information sheets for gardening neophytes. 

Compost
Good soil gives you good vegetables. Rake up those leaves, add lawn clippings or suitable food scraps, and create a compost pile that you can use in your garden next spring – while keeping all that stuff out of the landfill. The Extension offers directions for composting while DUG offers free composting classes.

Investigate CSAs
If you don’t want to grow a garden, buy a share in community supported agriculture. By paying typically several hundred dollars a year, a family can receive weekly shipments of fresh produce – and sometimes eggs, honey, flowers, herbs and meat as well. The state agriculture department lists CSAs at www.colorado.gov/ag. (Drill down through Divisions, Markets and Agritourism listings to find them.) The Robyn Van En Center, named for the CSA founder, lists nationwide CSAs at www.csacenter.org.

Visit a Farmer’s Market – Now or Next Year
In many communities, markets continue until around November 1. Colorado markets are listed at the Colorado Farmers’ Market Association (www.coloradofarmers.org) or the Colorado Department of Agriculture (www.colorado.gov/ag/markets).