The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today!
Who doesn’t love strolling Colorado’s farmers’ markets, filling shopping baskets with spectacular local produce, and learning from the growers themselves about the products we feed our families?
This kind of intimate connection between consumers and farmers is what farm families in the more remote eastern Colorado regions—and rural farmers across the country—are aching to experience. Through a national movement known as CommonGround, women from rural farms (many from families who have worked the same land for more than 100 years) are introducing themselves on a personal level to help urbanites better understand the people who grow our food.
At a recent CommonGround meeting in Byers, I discovered an impressive group of women who were adamant about helping people debunk the myths of life on a rural family farm. “We want our children to grow up on healthy food just like anyone else,” says Danell Kalcevic, office manager and safety director as well as mother and wife on a multigenerational farm that raises wheat, millet, corn, sunflowers, and cattle. “Just because we are a large farm, doesn’t mean we are any less committed to growing food that nourishes our children and allows us to be good stewards of the land.”
Tip: You can taste Kalcevic’s all-natural wheat in the form of Ultragrain White Whole Wheat and All-Purpose Flour. Thanks to a patented milling process, the flour contains all the nutrition of whole wheat but with the taste and texture of white flour. Pick up a bag online or at area Kings Soopers under the Kroeger brand.