Sustainable Food and Agriculture Fund
Boulder County Farmers Market
Strengthening Regional Food Purchasing | $61,988
Boulder County’s Farmers market is launching a year-round online marketplace that will connect institutional buyers to locally produced food. This effort will increase access to the regional food hub serving local food producers and community members in Boulder County. Tapping into the economies of scale that come with institutional-level procurement will help mid-size growers find stable markets.
Boulder Valley Ranch
Compost Spreading and Irrigation Maintenance | $41,350
Boulder Valley Ranch is using funds to purchase a compost spreader and ditch cleaner. They will utilize this equipment across 3,000 acres of public and private land. This equipment will allow the ranch to better cycle nutrients and increase irrigation efficiency, which will improve productivity and soil health.
Harvest of All First Nations
Corn Festival | $20,000
The second annual Harvest of All First Nations Corn Festival fostered cultural and ecological regeneration by reconnecting BIPOC communities with their traditional foodways. This event will bring together community and experts to share locally-grown heritage and Indigenous knowledge through workshops and hands-on activities.
Rocky Mountain Pumpkin Ranch
Organic Grain Storage | $60,000
Rocky Mountain Pumpkin Ranch is addressing the limited supply of grain storage space in Boulder County by creating grain storage for organic corn, wheat, and grains grown on 2,000 acres of USDA certified organic land. To further support the production of organic produce in Boulder County, other organic farmers will be given grain bins so that they can store their own harvests
Speedwell Farm & Gardens
Building Resilience through Perennial Cropping and On-Farm Fertility Systems | $40,000
Speedwell Farm & Gardens is building long-term community resilience through regenerative agriculture. Using perennial cropping and closed-loop fertility, Speedwell will transform farm by-products and waste streams into soil amendments that will improve soil quality. These circular fertility systems, alongside annual and perennial market gardens, improve soil health and access to local food.
St. Vrain Valley School District
Project Sky Garden | $100,000
St. Vrain Valley School district is building a vertical garden education and entrepreneurship program at St. Vrain Career Elevation and Technology Center. In addition to serving all 120 students in the center’s agriscience pathway, the vertical garden will also support an afterschool student team.
2023 Small Projects Selected for Funding
Community Fruit Rescue: Harvest Infrastructure Expansion Project | $4,972
Community Fruit Rescue harvests and distributes surplus urban fruit growing in Boulder County. Funding supported the expansion of the organization’s collection through the installation of a centralized Harvest Hub in a high-need location.
High Plains Biochar and Yellow Barn Farm: High Plains Biochar RocketChar 301 Life Cycle Analysis on Yellow Barn Farm | $5,000
High Plains Biochar partnered with Yellow Barn Farm to conduct a life cycle analysis that provided detailed information on carbon farming and the benefits of replacing propane heating with heat generated by biochar production.
Nederland Victory Gardens: Victory Garden’s Greenhouse | $5,000
Victory Gardens built a net-zero energy greenhouse using recycled, carbon-neutral materials. This greenhouse serves as an educational tool to demonstrate regenerative and organic local food production in high-altitude environments.
Sustainable Alliances, Inc.: Project Qanil | $4,860
Sustainable Alliances, Inc. built a native seed bank that is used to restore landscapes after wildfires. This funding also supported the launch of an on-site bilingual market, facilitated outreach to underserved communities, and aided the development of a Día de los Muertos Garden-in-a-Box, which includes native plant materials that are used in traditional ofrendas, offerings placed in a home altar during the Día de los Muertos celebration.
Sustainable Living Designs: Colorado Backyard Fruit | $4,750
Sustainable Living Designs uses permaculture principles to install edible landscapes that allows residents to convert their lawns into food forests. Sustainable Living Designs used this funding to set up an edible plant nursery for perennial species adapted to Colorado’s growing conditions. These plants were planted in the backyards of homeowners throughout Boulder County.
Past Years
Bridge House
Mission Meals for Casa De La Esperanza Community | $21,000
Bridge House’s Mission Meals program is providing frozen, precooked meals-in-a-bag to food-insecure households within Casa De La Esperanza Community, a residential community dedicated to helping agricultural workers. Prioritization of sourcing locally grown food will be made when cost effective and available.
Eco-Cycle
On-Farm Composting and Compost-Use Demonstrations | $37,000
Eco-Cycle is providing aerated static pile on-farm composting systems to several high-profile farm partners. They are testing a variety of finished compost blends to meet the needs of local regenerative farmers.
Grama Grass & Livestock
Regenerative Livestock Agriculture | $56,000
Funding went towards the purchase of equipment to enable the efficient transportation of cattle, an agroecological impact evaluation to quantify the impacts of their regenerative grazing program, and community outreach and education. Grama Grass & Livestock is implementing regenerative practices on publicly held and privately owned land to help build native food resiliency.
Jack’s Solar Garden
Agrivoltaics Equipment, Infrastructure, and Eduction | $40,000
Jack’s Solar Garden is the country’s largest demonstration project of agrivoltaics, which is the co-development of land for both solar photovoltaic power and agriculture. Through partnerships with Sprout City Farms and the Colorado Agrivoltaic Learning Center, Jack’s Solar Garden is using funding to invest in on-site farm infrastructure and equipment to further their regenerative agriculture practices.
Light Root Community Farm
Soil Health Resiliency with Holistic Farm Management Practices | $40,000
Light Root Community Farm is building soil health and farm resiliency through fertility management systems within the farm. This includes expanding compost production, multi-species grazing systems, cover cropping, and reduced tillage.
MASA Seed Foundation
Building a Local Grain Movement from the Ground Up | $75,000
This project is advancing Colorado’s ancient and heritage grain movement by bringing a wider diversity of grains into production, using regenerative practices, and working with a community of regional partners to share best practices through a series of fun educational events.
Project Protect Promotora Network
Boulder County Resource Distribution | $42,500
The Project Protect Promotora Networks serves frontline farm workers across six different agricultural regions of Colorado. Funds are being used to purchase safety resources for frontline farm workers in Boulder County.
Suarez Market at Mariposa
High Density Apple Orchard | $68,000
Mariposa Farms is establishing a high-density apple orchard to produce apple products. Orchard design will focus on energy and water conservation using existing on-site solar power, under-tree mulch strips to conserve soil moisture during periods of drought, and subsurface tiling to encourage deeper root growth. By year two, the project is estimated to produce 10,000 pounds of fruit per year and sequester approximately 100 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Boulder Jewish Community Center
Milk and Honey Farm | $2,432
Milk and Honey Farm is implementing no-till farming and cover crops to sequester carbon, maintain soil health, and increase the efficiency of their educational farm. Funding will be used for tools, compost, silage tarps, and perennials.
Boulder Valley Honey
Pollinator Education and Hotspots | $4,948
Boulder Valley Honey is leveraging raw, local, and recycled materials to build pollinator presence throughout eastern Boulder County. Boulder Valley Honey will purchase local rough-sawn lumber to process into beehives while providing hands-on educational opportunities to to further public understanding of beekeeping and honey production.
Citizen Science Soil Health Project
Website Plus Grower Video Profiles | $2,700
The Citizen Science Soil Health Project helps growers measure soil improvements by providing free Haney and PLFA soil health tests. This funding is being used to create a website that will feature annual group findings, reporting templates, and instructional videos.
Harvest of All First Nations and Drylands Agroecology Research
Harvest of All First Nations Festival | $5,000
The Harvest of All First Nations festival will foster cultural and ecological regeneration by reconnecting BIPOC communities with their traditional foodways. This event brought together diverse groups to share locally-grown heritage foods and Indigenous Knowledge through workshops and classes.
Kelly Enterprises
Supporting Low-Income Voucher Programs at Boulder County Farmers’ Markets | $4,920
The Erie and Louisville Farmers’ Markets, frontline farm organizations run by Kelly Enterprises, will participate in low-income voucher programs starting in 2022. These programs will advance equity and inclusion at these farmers’ markets and in their host communities by aiding frontline farm workers and providing local, and sustainable food to residents.
Simple Bee Conservation
Boulder Community Pollinator Corridor and Living Classrooms | $5,000
Simply Bee Organics is creating a chain of conservation pollinator gardens, native bee habitat, and living classrooms in collaboration with local farms, schools, non-profits, community gardens, municipalities, local businesses, HOAs, neighborhoods, and private residences.
Community Table Farm
Mushrooms and Composting on Small Farms| $1,893
Community Table Farm built a fruiting chamber to produce mushrooms as a value-added product for their CSA and use the mushroom compost as an amendment for garden beds. They built a cost-effective model of on-farm production of mushrooms and soil amendments that can be replicated on small farms.
Dharma’s Garden
Outdoor Education Shelter | $5,000
This project used funds to purchase a seasonal shelter that allowed for socially distanced outdoor education. This included farm demonstrations and best practice workshops about regenerative agriculture and soil health.
Earth’s Table
Demonstrate Regenerative Agriculture Techniques for Six Vegetable Gardens | $4,000
This program improved soil health in six vegetable gardens by minimizing soil disturbance, utilizing cover crops, and implementing living roots to grow garden vegetables for local food banks. Earth’s Table partnered with Edaphic Solutions to brew compost tea to be used in the gardens.
Flatirons Young Farmers Coalition
Educational Curriculum for Resilient and Sustainable Young Farmers | $25,000
The Flatirons Young Farmers Coalition is providing a 2-year educational curriculum that focuses on animal husbandry, soil restoration, business fundamentals for farming and ranching, and the production and distribution of small-scale grains. This project emphasizes place-based education that lifts the expertise of established local farmers while also empowering beginner farmers.
Garden to Table
Outreach and Training for Sustainable Growing Practices in School Gardens | $25,000
Garden to Table is a school garden support organization serving 18 schools in Boulder County. Garden to Table is creating a Teacher and Parent Corps that will help integrate garden-based learning into school curriculum and activities. This project provides outreach, training, support, and bilingual educational signage to make sure all students feel welcome while learning about sustainable growing practices and the importance of their school garden.
Growing Gardens
Long’s Gardens Conservation and Agricultural Plan Implementation | $35,250
Growing Gardens is implementing a comprehensive ten-year agricultural management plan on Long’s Gardens, a 25-acre urban educational farm. This initiative improves soil health and farm ecology to support the production of local food while involving and educating the public about the benefits of regenerative agriculture.
Isabelle Farm
Regenerative Grazing on Forage & Cover Crops | $50,000
Isabelle Farm converted 300 acres of cropland from a traditional hay, grain, and silage rotation to a cover crop-grazing system. Isabelle Farm used portable infrastructure to facilitate regenerative grazing on no-till cover crops and forage crops. Additionally, this project increased the crop residue grazing program that Isabelle Farm started in 2019 in collaboration with Van Thuyne Farms.
Kilt Farm
Land Regeneration Pilot Project for Public and Private Lands | $75,000
Kilt Farm is using mineral balancing, biological inoculations, and cover cropping to turn poor soil into productive agricultural land while cataloging costs, benefits, and improvements so that this technique can be utilized and replicated by other Front Range farmers. The equipment and techniques supported by this grant is being utilized by multiple farms on both public and private lands.
Red Wagon Farm
Increasing the Local Winter Food Supply for Boulder County | $40,000
Red Wagon Farm increased their production of winter root crops for their CSA members, local restaurant customers, and wholesale customers. This project improves soil health and optimize seasonal produce distribution.
Boulder Mushroom
Fungal Inoculation of On-Farm Biomass for Carbon Negative Farming Best Practices| $4,107
This is a scalable pilot project in which fungal inoculation of on-farm woody biomass was tested as a method for building biologically active soil and transforming waste carbon material. Test beds were built at Ollin Farms and inoculated with edible strains of fungi produced by Boulder Mushroom. The beds are being monitored for one year and subsequently analyzed for the nutrient availability and biological makeup of the product
Community Table Farm
Mushrooms and Composting on Small Farms| $1,893
Community Table Farm built a fruiting chamber to produce mushrooms as a value-added product for their CSA and use the mushroom compost as an amendment for garden beds. They built a cost-effective model of on-farm production of mushrooms and soil amendments that can be replicated on small farms.
Dharma’s Garden
Outdoor Education Shelter | $5,000
This project used funds to purchase a seasonal shelter that allowed for socially distanced outdoor education. This included farm demonstrations and best practice workshops about regenerative agriculture and soil health.
Earth’s Table
Demonstrate Regenerative Agriculture Techniques for Six Vegetable Gardens | $4,000
This program improved soil health in six vegetable gardens by minimizing soil disturbance, utilizing cover crops, and implementing living roots to grow garden vegetables for local food banks. Earth’s Table partnered with Edaphic Solutions to brew compost tea to be used in the gardens.
Flatirons Young Farmers Coalition
Educational Curriculum for Resilient and Sustainable Young Farmers | $25,000
The Flatirons Young Farmers Coalition is providing a 2-year educational curriculum that focuses on animal husbandry, soil restoration, business fundamentals for farming and ranching, and the production and distribution of small-scale grains. This project emphasizes place-based education that lifts the expertise of established local farmers while also empowering beginner farmers.
Garden to Table
Outreach and Training for Sustainable Growing Practices in School Gardens | $25,000
Garden to Table is a school garden support organization serving 18 schools in Boulder County. Garden to Table is creating a Teacher and Parent Corps that will help integrate garden-based learning into school curriculum and activities. This project provides outreach, training, support, and bilingual educational signage to make sure all students feel welcome while learning about sustainable growing practices and the importance of their school garden.
Growing Gardens
Long’s Gardens Conservation and Agricultural Plan Implementation | $35,250
Growing Gardens is implementing a comprehensive ten-year agricultural management plan on Long’s Gardens, a 25-acre urban educational farm. This initiative improves soil health and farm ecology to support the production of local food while involving and educating the public about the benefits of regenerative agriculture.
Isabelle Farm
Regenerative Grazing on Forage & Cover Crops | $50,000
Isabelle Farm converted 300 acres of cropland from a traditional hay, grain, and silage rotation to a cover crop-grazing system. Isabelle Farm used portable infrastructure to facilitate regenerative grazing on no-till cover crops and forage crops. Additionally, this project increased the crop residue grazing program that Isabelle Farm started in 2019 in collaboration with Van Thuyne Farms.
Kilt Farm
Land Regeneration Pilot Project for Public and Private Lands | $75,000
Kilt Farm is using mineral balancing, biological inoculations, and cover cropping to turn poor soil into productive agricultural land while cataloging costs, benefits, and improvements so that this technique can be utilized and replicated by other Front Range farmers. The equipment and techniques supported by this grant is being utilized by multiple farms on both public and private lands.
Red Wagon Farm
Increasing the Local Winter Food Supply for Boulder County | $40,000
Red Wagon Farm increased their production of winter root crops for their CSA members, local restaurant customers, and wholesale customers. This project improves soil health and optimize seasonal produce distribution.
Aspen Moon Farm
Heritage Grains & Cover Cropping | $55,000
Aspen Moon increased edible grain production and addressed the need for regenerative agriculture and soil health practices. They purchased multipurpose equipment for rotational cover cropping, production of local heritage grains, and regenerative seed saving. The production of local heritage grains seeked to address the need for sustainable local food and crop production. Aspen Moon also offered on-farm training for local farms to demonstrate how the equipment could be used to improve soil health while producing a sustainable local crop.
Black Cat Organic Farm
Pasture Cropping: Organic Grain Production in Perennial Pastures | $43,500
Black Cat Organic Farm trialed the regenerative agricultural practice of pasture cropping, an innovative agricultural growing system new to Boulder County. Pasture cropping integrates annual cereal grain or vegetable production into perennial sod fields with maximum diversity and as little disturbance as possible. The funding was used for farm infrastructure, equipment, and supplies.
Cottonwood Farms
Brown to Green Soil Health Project | $46,300
The Cottonwood Farm “Brown to Green Regenerative Soil Health Project” represents a shift in vision from seeing the beauty of brown freshly tilled soil to seeing the promise of covered and undisturbed soil with all of the unseen life underneath for the farm. Cottonwood Farms tested and demonstrated the use of basic soil health principles and their adaptability to our local climate using methods and tools that are scalable to both larger and smaller operations. The goals of the project were to demonstrate viable agricultural production while (1) minimizing soil disturbance, (2) keeping soil covered as much as possible, (3) keeping a living root in the ground as long as possible, and (4) add diversity through cover and companion crops.
Cure Organic Farm
Increasing Agro-Ecological Diversity | $41,416
Cure’s Organic Farm’s project supported the increase of agro-ecological habitat of the farm by adding regenerative agriculture practices and increasing soil health. Cure used funds to plant wind breaks to decrease soil erosion and create native pollinator habitat. The farm also increased soil organic matter and microbiology by increasing use of irrigated cover crops. Equipment and irrigation infrastructure was also purchased.
McCauley Family Farms
Multi-Species Pasture Regeneration | $40,000
The McCauley Family Farms project of $40,000 funded infrastructure to facilitate regenerative production and soil-building efforts. Specifically, the funds went to multi-species pasture regeneration units: shade structures, water trailers, and solar trailers. These regeneration units facilitated soil building on 80 acres and were used for on farm demonstrations.
Ollin Farms
Project 95 | $40,000
The mission of Project 95 is to turn the south side of Longmont into a demonstration of what is possible when farmers, scientists, community members, students, and neighbors work together with the common goal of building health and resiliency into our agricultural lands. The funding of $40,000 was geared to support five on-farm demonstration areas including conservation plan implementation, sustainable carbon cycling, community-based learning opportunities, pollinator and bird sanctuaries, and eco system data collection.
Sky Pilot Farm
Regenerative Grazing | $43,500
Funding went to more mobile fencing, water transport, and access to shade. Sudden changes in weather, carrying capacity of a paddock, or seasonal trends can change what these movement need to look like on a year-to-year basis. SkyPilot Farm needed to have enough infrastructure to set up several movements worth of paddock to have the ability to act quickly on arising information in the field such as weather and general health of the pasture. This project benefited Boulder County sustainability goals in three key areas: health of riparian areas, a focus on pollinators, and encouraging native grasslands and wildlife.