Outstanding in their field

LONGMONT — A small crop of organic farmers is on the leading edge of growing non-GMO foods in Boulder County.

GMO-Free Boulder – a local advocacy group – last year called for county commissioners to ban all genetically modified crops from open-space land owned by Boulder County and leased to farmers. Natural and organic food industry leaders such as Mark Retzloff, a founder of Alfalfa’s Market grocery stores, and Steve Demos, founder and former president of White Wave Inc. (makers of Silk soymilk) are involved with the group.

Boulder County’s three commissioners voted unanimously in December to allow some genetically modified crops to be grown on the land. Since then, the commissioners also gave the go-ahead to hire a new part-time local foods and public outreach specialist. Jennifer Kemp was hired and is putting together an online map with information about all of the farmers who lease Boulder County Parks and Open Space land.

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In recent years, the commissioners also have come up with incentives — basically 50 percent off the lease price during a three-year transition period to organic — to farmers who grow organic crops, said David Bell, agricultural resource manager for Boulder County government. In addition, organic farmers receive preference over non-organic farmers who apply to lease land, Bell said.

“I try to remind people that we as staff can’t produce organic crops. That’s not what we do,” Bell said. “But through the incentives and lease preferences, we continue to work on it.”

County open-space land leases range from $25 to $100 per acre, Bell said. They’re commonly $50 per acre per year during the three-year-period that a farmer transitions to organic crops, Bell said. The county took in about $1.5 million in 2011 to lease 25,000 acres of open-space land to farmers, Bell said.

At Ollin Farms, co-owners Mark Guttridge and his wife, Kena, farm six acres of land originally owned and farmed by his grandmother and another 12 acres of leased open space south of Oskar Blues Homemade Liquids and Solids restaurant in Longmont.

Ollin Farms sells produce at local farmers’ markets, at its own vegetable stand at the farm and through community-supported agriculture, or CSA “shares,” in which customers commit to buying a box of whatever is in season on a regular basis throughout the growing season.

In addition, the Guttridges hold summer camps for children and organic dinner nights at the farm. Everyone in the family works on the farm, with Mark Guttridge pointing out that he continues to work at his day job as an environmental engineer to make ends meet.

Guttridge said he appreciates the county incentives, since it’s difficult to make a living at farming. Guttridge declined to discuss specific revenues of his family’s privately owned business.

“Whether it is greenhouses or tractors, everything we make on the farm, we reinvest in the farm,” Guttridge said. “We’re starting to get traction and become re-established, but it’s an incredible amount of work and time and capital costs to get it up and running. Boulder County open space (lease costs) takes one of those costs away.”

The Guttridges and Ollin Farms serve as a model for what other farmers can do, Bell said. More than 1,500 acres of open space in 2012 now grow or are transitioning to organic crops, according to a recent report. In 2010, the number of county open-space acres growing organic crops was a little more than 500, according to the report.

“What Mark is doing is amazing,” Bell said. “We’re trying to get more people like him out there.”

Many customers are searching for more locally grown food as well – for freshness, health and safety reasons, Guttridge said. Of the estimated $980 million spent on food in Boulder County annually, only about 2 percent of the total revenue comes from food grown in the county, according to a recent local study.

“If we’re going to call ourselves a sustainable county, this is what drives us,” Guttridge said. “With the popularity of farmers’ markets and in controlling our own health, there’s a huge consumer demand for it.”

Residents also should take into account that much of the local wheat and sugar beets grown here come back to Boulder County, Kemp said. As one example, wheat farmers sell their crops to ConAgra, which mills it in Commerce City and sells it to bakers in the region. That bread comes back to Boulder County, Kemp said. Sugar beets grown here return to local grocery stores in bags of sugar.

Kemp also has been involved in discussions between members of Boulder-based Rudi’s Bakery and local farmers to create a partnership where locally grown organic wheat could be used in a specially branded bread. Rudi’s is in the feasibility phase of creating the product, said Doug Radi, senior vice president of marketing and sales at Rudi’s.

“We love being part of this community, (and) we would love being a solution for the local food system,” Radi said. “We would have to invent a local supply chain. The marketing, baking and delivery part of it would be easy.”

While the GMO and “local food” discussions may continue, Guttridge and the county are onto a new project — collaborating on a fruit orchard.

Ollin Farms recently planted a 120-tree demonstration fruit orchard on leased open-space land. The county will own the trees, and Ollin Farms will manage them, Guttridge said. The orchard includes 70 apple trees, along with a variety of peach, plum and cherry trees, and, most recently, a special breed of cold-tolerant hazelnut tree.

All of the fruit tree varieties are bred to bloom late and produce early to fit a “safe zone” for Colorado’s unpredictable spring and fall climate swings, Guttridge said. The first harvest is planned in 2014.

“It’s an honor,” Guttridge said, “to lease that land and to be a land steward for the land.”