February 4, 2010: Boulder County
Boulder County Farmer Cultivation Center
One way or another, re-ruralization will be the dominant social trend of the 21st century. Thirty or forty years from now—again, one way or another—we will see a more historically normal ratio of rural to urban population, with the majority once again living in small farming communities. More food will be produced in cities than is the case today. But cities will be smaller. Millions more people than today will be in the countryside growing food.”
—Richard Heinberg, Fifty Million Farmers
Achieving Food Security in Boulder County
The mission of the proposed Boulder County Farmer Cultivation Center is to provide space and programming to foster increased food production in our community. It will be an incubator for new farmers, farming and gardening techniques, and food related businesses…
The objectives of the Farmer Cultivation Center are to:
- Create a supportive community to cultivate organic farmers and food related businesses. In order to increase the amount of locally grown and produced food, we need more farmers and value-added food businesses. Because this is the backbone of our local food system, we must do everything possible to insure that new farmers and food businesses are given every opportunity to succeed.
- Provide farmland, facilities and programs to foster increased local food production. The best way to bring more food production to our community is to provide the resources necessary to create new farms and food businesses.
- Increase opportunities for affordable locally grown food. Locally grown food is sometimes too expensive for everyone in our community to afford. We must develop innovative ways to reduce the cost of locally grown food while keeping our farms and businesses financially viable and providing living wages to employees.
- Assist our community in its transition towards sustainability. Food production is one of the major impact that humans have on our ecosystem. Any efforts towards a more sustainable community must involve food production and consumption habits.
The Farmer Cultivation Center will:
- Make “entry level” plots of farm land available for prospective farmers. These plots will start as very small (think ¼ to ½ acre) and progressively get larger for that farmer in successive years until the farmer can spin off into her own farm operation.
- Operate a working CSA for education and training. Participating farmers will learn how to manage a CSA and when they are ready to start their own CSA, they can take a portion of the membership with them to seed their new operation.
- Provide mentorship, education and career paths for new farmers. The biggest risks to new farmers occur in the early years of operation when the business is susceptible to economic, weather related and operational stresses. By allowing new farmers to start small under the guidance of a mentor, we can reduce risk and increase the odds that a new farmer will succeed.
- Provide facilities for hands-on classes and workshops. There are already many great people and organizations conducting education on growing food. We need a facility that will support those efforts.
- Research, development and demonstration of innovative food production and agricultural practices. As we strive to become more efficient at feeding ourselves, we need a place to develop best practices. We will provide the space and facility to allow innovative farmers to test their new ideas.
- Provide resources for food business development. The physical infrastructure required for a food business can be prohibitively expensive. By allowing food business entrepreneurs access to existing facilities such as a commercial kitchen or canning facility, we can allow them to focus on product development instead of building facilities.
- Create a community gathering space for food related activities and events. This space will be the focal point of our food community, allowing access to all those who strive to connect on food issues.
Our long term commitment is to continuously improve and expand our local food production capability and capacity to create a sustainable and vibrant food shed. The effort will be community centric, inclusive, collaborative, empowering and sustainable.
