A purple daikon radish grown at Ollin Farms in Longmont, Colo., and different greens are ready to be served at a gathering to debate assist for small Colorado farmers in December.

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A purple daikon radish grown at Ollin Farms in Longmont, Colo., and different greens are ready to be served at a gathering to debate assist for small Colorado farmers in December.

Rachel Woolf for NPR

In a cold storeroom piled excessive with fall produce, Jimena Cordero is chopping up greens and fanning them out onto trays.

Cordero is the farm supervisor at Ollin Farms, not removed from Boulder, Colo. — she’s put collectively vibrant pink and purple radishes, apple, recent turnips.

“This is a green luobo,” she explains, as she expertly cuts the rectangular radish into rounds.

These domestically grown greens aren’t simply fairly. They’re being ready to make a case to state lawmakers at a gathering later that afternoon.

“You can have a super colorful veggie tray for a meeting, and everybody can get on the same vibration, eating the same good, healthy food,” says Cordero’s dad, Mark Guttridge, who began this farm along with his spouse, Kena, 17 years in the past.

Mark Guttridge, farmer and co-owner at Ollin Farms, feeds the chickens. The farm advantages from a county program that helps small growers get their produce to extra individuals.

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Mark Guttridge, farmer and co-owner at Ollin Farms, feeds the chickens. The farm advantages from a county program that helps small growers get their produce to extra individuals.

Rachel Woolf for NPR

That vibration and the great, wholesome meals are a part of the case Guttridge needs to make that farmers can play an vital position in public well being diet applications. At the assembly with a few dozen native farmers, two state representatives, and the Colorado commissioner of agriculture, Guttridge will clarify how Boulder county has made artistic investments in his farm that may very well be scaled as much as the state and even nationwide degree.

Healthy soil to wholesome inhabitants

Before the assembly, Guttridge exhibits me a type of investments. A dozen sheep mill about in a subject bordered by a easy white fence. The animals, which Guttridge raises for wool, munch on radishes which have been leftover for them. And as they eat, they poop.

“So these guys are out fertilizing the radish field,” Guttridge laughs. “They’ll be out here a couple more weeks, and then it’ll sit for about four or five months. And then we’ll just till that in and get our next summer veggies planted right there.”

Ollin Farms acquired a grant from the county to purchase moveable fences, so they might rotate their livestock. As the sheep graze, they go away behind manure that enriches the soil for future crops.

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Ollin Farms acquired a grant from the county to purchase moveable fences, so they might rotate their livestock. As the sheep graze, they go away behind manure that enriches the soil for future crops.

Rachel Woolf for NPR

Around the sphere is a particular moveable kind of fencing that Ollin Farms purchased utilizing grants from the Boulder County Sustainability Office. It permits them to maneuver the sheep from one subject to a different, fertilizing as they go. He’s additionally used grants for a farm compost system to fertilize the fields that the sheep do not graze on.

The aim of those investments is “really building up our soil health,” he explains. “That relates directly to the nutrient quality and nutrient density of the food — healthy soil grows healthy food.”

Jimena Cordero is farm supervisor at Ollin Farms and Mark Guttridge’s daughter. She prepares veggies for an upcoming assembly to debate Boulder County Sustainability.

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Jimena Cordero is farm supervisor at Ollin Farms and Mark Guttridge’s daughter. She prepares veggies for an upcoming assembly to debate Boulder County Sustainability.

Rachel Woolf for NPR

The county additionally makes an effort to get that wholesome meals out to totally different communities to have the ability to enhance public well being.

That’s the place the Boulder County Public Health division is available in. It created a coupon program that low-income households — lots of blended immigration standing — can use to get free vegetables and fruit from Ollin Farms’ farm stand.

“It’s great because it brought a little more diversity to our farm stand – new people, new families,” Guttridge says. “We’re trying to make it more of a place where people come and get their food, but they also hang out and learn.” He is hoping the brand new prospects will study concerning the values of sustainable farming – and the way tasty its produce will be.

Win, win, win

Nutrition incentive applications, like these public well being fruit and vegetable coupons, are spreading all around the nation, and most are funded by way of the federal farm invoice.

Amy Lazarus Yaroch, government director on the Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition, says these applications usually have broad bipartisan assist. “It’s a triple win,” she explains. “It’s basically good for the consumer who lives in that particular community because they’re getting the healthy food, it’s good for the farmer, and then it’s good for the economy,” she explains.

Then once more, these applications solely assist native farmers if individuals use their incentives on meals that is grown domestically. Guttridge says that it is a problem to compete with cheaper meals and produce on the huge grocery shops on the town, the place lots of people in Boulder and neighboring Longmont go to redeem their fruit and veg coupons.

Mark Guttridge and his daughter, Jimena Cordero, at Ollin Farm in Longmont, Colo.

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Mark Guttridge and his daughter, Jimena Cordero, at Ollin Farm in Longmont, Colo.

Rachel Woolf for NPR

He argues that processed meals is already backed, so it isn’t a good combat. Jim Krieger, government director of a nonprofit referred to as Healthy Food America, says Guttridge is true.

“There’s lots of subsidies for soy and corn – they’re key ingredients for ultra-processed foods, which makes their price artificially low relative to fresh fruits and vegetables,” Krieger says.

Governments can use rules to dam individuals from utilizing their diet incentives at huge field grocery shops in order that they’re compelled to make use of them within the native meals system, however Boulder county is not taking that method.

Instead of sticks, they’re utilizing carrots – making an attempt to make domestically farmed produce simpler to entry and higher than the flown-in competitors.

A power for good

Not removed from Ollin Farms in Longmont, Colo., Boulder County Farmer’s Market makes use of an enormous warehouse as a meals hub, bringing collectively produce from numerous totally different native farms for distribution and supply.

Mackenzie Sehlke, the group’s government director, pulls open the door of a walk-in fridge. “A lot of storage crops in here right now,” she says.

MacKenzie Sehlke is the chief director of Boulder County Farmer’s Markets.

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MacKenzie Sehlke is the chief director of Boulder County Farmer’s Markets.

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Sehlke argues that one huge benefit of shopping for from native farmers is that they are often attentive to the neighborhood. “We have a large Nepalese community here,” she says. “So we’re starting to hear more about staple goods from the Nepalese cuisine and thinking about – will someone grow a specific green or a specific tuber for that population?”

Having individuals from totally different backgrounds develop into a part of the native meals scene pushes farmers to consider what else they’ll develop, she says. “I talked to someone who just had gotten a request for Crowder Peas, which are very common in African diaspora cuisine and would grow really beautifully here,” she says.

Yes, she acknowledges, there are many huge structural issues with America’s meals system, however she’s happy with what Boulder county has been in a position to do with native tax income to make native produce reasonably priced to extra individuals.

“I think that that local dynamism and that local innovation is pretty cool,” she says. “And I’ve also seen it push the state and other municipalities to think differently.”

Policy generally is a power for good, she says, to forge connections between farmer, market and hungry resident — so it is simpler and extra reasonably priced to eat domestically grown meals.

Photography by Rachel Woolf. Katie Hayes Luke edited visuals for this story. Diane Webber edited the radio and digital variations of the story.