Cultivating Collaborations: A Carbondale Visit Sparks Innovative Local Food Initiatives
On Friday, January 19th, Colorado Farm & Food Alliance staff Pete and Lauren embarked on a journey to Carbondale’s Third Street Center, joining a round table discussion led by Gwen Garcelon on local food actions and initiatives in the Roaring Fork Valley. We were excited to join the discussion since The Roaring Fork and the North Fork of the Gunnison are both headwaters to the Colorado River Basin with a long shared history. Working together and learning from one another circles back to how we shape our work, organizing by watershed to support broader bioregional food security.
Fostering Market Access
A key focal point of the conversation was the pressing need for better market access for local farmers. Amidst the dialogue, promising ideas surfaced. One such notion mirrored the ambitious Rocky Mountain Farm Collaborative's vision, which seeks to establish a local food market on the Front Range. This envisioned market would aggregate statewide produce and would include non-local products so as to serve as a one stop grocery shop.
Additionally, the prospect of an Online Farmer's Market, such as that used in the North Fork with the Paonia Producers market, also generated interest.
The discussion explored avenues for supplying local produce to mainstream grocers like City Market and collaborating with the food security organization, Lift Up.
A handy resource for those in Roaring Fork and others who want to learn from them is the Roaring Fork Valley Food Enterprise Feasibility Study published in May 2023.
Of course the road to a thriving local food economy is not without challenges.
Discussions highlighted many significant obstacles, that stand in the way of prosperous local farms and a strong local food economy. These include the lack of economic security and a livable wage for farmers and farmworkers. Affordable housing access emerged, and re-emerged, as another critical issue throughout the conversations.
It is also these challenges that unite us across watersheds, and these issues resonate in both the Roaring Fork and North Fork valleys.
Clearing Obstacles on the Path
With the success of this event and the many interesting ideas that were shared, there was a proposal made to organize a Western Colorado Local Food Summit.
This would be an event where we could foster more collaboration among western Colorado local food stakeholders. More information about this will be available soon if enough of the groups involved are interested.
For the Colorado Farm & Food Alliance the visit to Carbondale served as a space to develop innovative ideas and join in shared endeavors. The determination to address challenges head-on and to build a robust and enduring local food ecosystem underscores the commitment of many leaders in both the Roaring Fork and the North Fork communities. We look forward to what comes next with this newly formed collaboration.
