Colorado is in the worst drought on record.
A late freeze wiped out fruit and vegetable harvests across the state. Farmers are losing crops, restaurants are losing menu items, and families are paying more at the table.
Read about some local Colorado farms and what they’re overcoming this growing season:
Switch Gears Farm is a small-scale farm located in Longmont, CO, run by farmers Brett and Vanita. They primarily focus on high-quality produce and soil health and do not use any pesticides or synthetic fertilizers.
This season, drought has cut their production from 3 acres down to about 1.5 acres. Colorado's agricultural infrastructure is built for large, multigenerational farms, leaving small growers without reliable water rights, labor, or land access.
“the way that we do agriculture and the way that we farm in the state of Colorado is not meeting the needs of the current ways that we’re farming. The way that we’re approaching agriculture in Colorado is not sustainable.” (Vanita Patel)
How to support them:
Visit them at City Park Farmers Market or Lafayette Farmers Market
Ela Family Farms is a fourth generation, zero food-waste fruit farm powered by 80% renewable energy. Run by Farmer Steve Ela, and located in western Colorado, they grow over 55 varieties of organic fruit trees and actively participate in scientific research projects that support the future of organic agriculture.
A late season frost caused a 100% loss of their entire fruit crop this year.
“This is the first time in my life that I remember a zero crop across all fruits, and then you add it up across the whole county, you know, it’s just pretty cataclysmic.” (Steve Ela)
Hear more from them directly here
How to support them:
Ela Family Farms is not running a CSA this year due to their crop loss, however they have been able to repurpose a lot of last year’s harvest into jams, preserves, and other products.
You can purchase these directly from their website here or at various Farmers Markets across the state. To find which markets they will be at, click here.
Farmer Andrew Nowak runs a small farm called Community Table Farm, west of Longmont, Colorado. He’s been selling into Boulder and Denver area farms for the past eight years.
He is passionate about promoting local agriculture and is building the first Farm Stop in Longmont. Learn more about farm stops here.
To support Andrew and local Colorado agriculture, keep an eye out for his Longmont farm stop which should be opening June, 2027!