Colorado Food Guides Connect Consumers and Producers

In partnership with: Colorado Department of Agriculture

For Coloradans across the state, finding fresh, local food is easier than ever. Thanks to several local food guides, including the Palmer Land Conservancy (PLC) Local Food Guide and the Colorado Department of Agriculture Farm Fresh Directory, consumers have access to local farm-fresh products at their fingertips.

“The primary goal of our guide is to support our state’s producers and to help consumers know who is growing their food,” says Kristie Nackord, vice president of external affairs at Palmer Land Conservancy (PLC). “Farmers are the stewards of the land, and the more we support them, the more natural resources in our state will remain.”

See more: Colorado’s Top 10 Agricultural Commodities

Local Food Guide

PLC’s mission is to conserve natural resources like water and, ultimately, protect farming in Colorado. Its local food guide focuses on Southern Colorado and the extremely fertile farmland in Pueblo County, but they hope to expand to cover the entire state in the future.

Nackord says the first digital edition of the guide was released in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to help consumers access local food during a time when grocery store shelves were empty.

“The 2022 edition was our first print guide, and we distributed 10,000 copies around the southern part of the state,” she says. “We were really thoughtful about creating an appealing guide with excitement around local food, but also making sure we told producers’ stories and shared the agricultural history of the region.”

Organized by county, the guide lists contact information for local farms, farmers markets and agritourism destinations. Several farmers are featured, and a map shows the exact locations of farms and markets. The guide also includes recipes that use local ingredients, like the Rocky Ford Melon.

“We’ve had a lot of gratitude so far around the food guide,” Nackord says. “People are very appreciative that they can see what’s around them and not have to go to 50 different websites.”

For more information and to access a copy of the food guide, visit palmerland.org/find-local-food.

See more: Hirakata Farms: Life on a Multigenerational Melon Farm

Farm Fresh Directory

CDA releases a Farm Fresh Directory each year as an extension of the Colorado Proud program.

“We started the Farm Fresh Directory about 40 years ago to help consumers be able to find farmers markets, U-pick roadside stands, and other events like the county and state fairs,” says Danielle Trotta, Colorado Proud program manager. “We include information on whether the producer accepts food stamps or if they are handicap accessible. There’s a lot of information that people may not know. Especially during COVID, we pivoted to help people know which producers were selling online and how they could still shop local while remaining safe at home.”

The directory is released each June, and Trotta says it’s also available in Spanish. To learn more, visit ag.colorado.gov/category/farm-fresh.