Learning from Farmers to Create a Healthier Future

Colorado Farm & Food Alliance is super excited to be partnering with Mountain Roots Healthy Futures and AmeriCorps to host Sarsa Buck here in the North Fork Valley. Sarsa is helping Colorado Farm & Food Alliance learn from the amazing agricultural producers in our community about their practices, successes, challenges and stories. This is so the Colorado Farm and Food Alliance, and others, can better support regenerative agriculture in the region and our farmers and ranchers doing this work. 

Our goal is to create more pathways to boost conservation-minded and climate-smart ag in a way that benefits farmers, workers, and the community as a whole. We want to recognize and honor the hard work of farmers and farmworkers and learn more ways to support their success and well-being. 

Small farms and rural communities have a real opportunity to be climate action and resilience leaders, but they shouldn't be asked to take undue risk and carry all the burden to get there. 

Centering agriculture as a tool for resilience means ensuring farmers, farmworkers, and rural communities can thrive. Strengthening food security does mean ensuring rural communities are resilient, which means sustainably minded and adaptable but also equitable and economically secure. We hope this project can help us learn better ways to do all those things. 

So, this fall and winter, Sarsa will conduct in-depth interviews with local farmers and ranchers to better understand what local producers are doing and what they'd like to see happen with better support. 

If you own or operate a farm or ranch in Delta County, you may hear from Sarsa. She is actively engaging with growers and ranchers to find a time to meet. We also look forward to sharing the results of what we are learning along the way. 

If you missed Sarsa's introduction message, you can find it here.