I have been guilty before of rushing things, jumping the gun, putting the cart before the horse. Well, spring cannot get here soon enough for me and thankfully we only have a few short days with increasingly longer light until its arrival. My strategy to bring it upon us faster has been to obsess about asparagus. A most lauded if fragile and fleeting herald of le printemps.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, knows his numbers. He knows that more than 90 percent of Americans believe that all foods that contain or are made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) should be required to have labels that state as much. Unfortunately, he also knows that it’s going to be tough to get the number of votes needed in the House of Representatives to pass a new GMO labeling bill he intends to co-sponsor along with Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.). But that isn’t stopping him from trying.

LiveWell@SchoolFood Initiatives (Colorado) – This organization has developed a number of creative ways to address and stimulate healthy eating for students in Colorado schools. In the EatWell@School Initiative, high school students engage in a 9-week competition to design and prepare the most innovative, nutritious, and tasty school lunches. The Go, Slow, Whoa project teaches elementary school children to identify healthy and harmful foods, and to develop awareness of their own eating habits.

One hundred years ago, nearly all food was fresh and locally grown. Today, local food is earning an ever-growing share of the consumer’s plate. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farmers markets selling directly to consumers increased 9.6 percent from 2011 to 2012.

Forty percent of all the food produced in the U.S. goes uneaten, resulting in $165 billion a year in waste, according to an August 2012 report by the National Resources Defense Council. The current model for food production and delivery in the U.S. accounts for 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, 50 percent of U.S. land and 80 percent of all freshwater consumption, according to that same report. But while all these resources are consumed, 50.1 million Americans are going hungry annually, and nearly half of the food produced in the U.S. is going to waste in landfills, where it produces almost 25 percent of the methane emissions in the U.S.

It’s been a long time coming, but Longmont finally has its own large-scale natural/organic grocer. Sprouts Farmers Market opened its doors this week in the store formerly occupied by Borders on South Hover Road, and it is expected to address a market gap that has been waiting to be filled for years.

Food. When it comes to New Year's resolution time, what we eat often moves to the top of the list. While there are plenty of sensible resolutions to make about what to put on our plates and in our mouths, perhaps it's better to make our pledges about how we eat.

There are so many reasons to celebrate Fort Collins and I love the places that support local food and farmers the most.

Localization Partners is committed to bringing Slow Money capital into a variety of other Colorado food and farming enterprises, including a much-needed aggregation, processing and distribution infrastructure, which will make it possible for the local food industry to begin scaling to reach its larger commercial markets and begin to meet the growing market demand for local food that now far outstrips supply.

Fracking—known more formally as hydraulic fracturing—produces roughly 25 percent of the U.S. natural gas supply. This increasingly common practice uses pressurized fluid to release trapped oil or natural gas from a well, and has been praised for lowering energy prices. But concerns about fracking’s impacts on human health and the environment have caused many to question its expansion. And now, according to a recent article by Jack Healy of the New York Times, the debate has become even more contentious in the state of Colorado.