DENVER – With the smell of Colorado-grown food wafting through legislative chambers on Wednesday, lawmakers presented their annual honor to the agricultural community.
“Each year it seems like we have a new record of people jammed into this space,” said Gov. John Hickenlooper, speaking in a foyer in the Capitol. “This has got to be the most popular event that happens in the state Capitol.”
Each year, farmers and ranchers gather in the Capitol behind long tables with buffet chafing dishes filled with Rocky Ford cantaloupe, Palisade peaches, Olathe sweet corn, wheat, onions, cabbage, San Luis Valley potatoes, eggs, beef, lamb and pork.
“You go down that list, if just saying those words doesn’t make your mouth water, well, then you obviously haven’t had enough to eat,” Hickenlooper added.
As part of the celebration, lawmakers each year pass resolutions designating an Agriculture Day, as well as recognizing Colorado centennial farms.
The centennial farms program recognizes farms and ranches that have been owned and operated by the same family for 100 years or more.
Republican Rep. J. Paul Brown, a sheepherder from Ignacio, spoke of the challenge his family faced farming and ranching over the years in Colorado.
“We have been in the business for 40-plus years now... hopefully we’ll make that hundred years,” Brown said. “That gives you an idea of what farmers and ranchers go through, and these folks have been able to do it.”
“It’s heartwarming to think that a family can survive and persevere with each other for a hundred years,” added Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose. “Family life is tough, and farm life is tough... It truly is surviving and persevering.”
Don Brown, the Colorado commissioner of agriculture, is a centennial farmer himself.
“The centennial farms existed long before the days when food came from a grocery store and gas came from a gas pump,” Brown said.
“We, as farmers and ranchers, have done such a good job that we no longer have to think about food with our stomach, we get to think about it with our heart.”
pmarcus@durangoherald.com