{"id":106171,"date":"2016-03-16T21:01:02","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T03:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-grown-food-farms-celebrated-in-legislature\/"},"modified":"2016-03-16T21:01:02","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T03:01:02","slug":"colorado-grown-food-farms-celebrated-in-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-grown-food-farms-celebrated-in-legislature\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado-grown food, farms celebrated in Legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Gov.
Gov. John Hickenlooper delivers remarks at the 2016 Agriculture Day in the Colorado Capitol.<\/span>Peter Marcus\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 With the smell of Colorado-grown food wafting through legislative chambers on Wednesday, lawmakers presented their annual honor to the agricultural community.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach year it seems like we have a new record of people jammed into this space,\u201d said Gov. John Hickenlooper, speaking in a foyer in the Capitol. \u201cThis has got to be the most popular event that happens in the state Capitol.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go down that list, if just saying those words doesn\u2019t make your mouth water, well, then you obviously haven\u2019t had enough to eat,\u201d Hickenlooper added.<\/p>\n

As part of the celebration, lawmakers each year pass resolutions designating an Agriculture Day, as well as recognizing Colorado centennial farms.<\/p>\n

The centennial farms program recognizes farms and ranches that have been owned and operated by the same family for 100 years or more.<\/p>\n

Republican Rep. J. Paul Brown, a sheepherder from Ignacio, spoke of the challenge his family faced farming and ranching over the years in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been in the business for 40-plus years now\u2026 hopefully we\u2019ll make that hundred years,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThat gives you an idea of what farmers and ranchers go through, and these folks have been able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s heartwarming to think that a family can survive and persevere with each other for a hundred years,\u201d added Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose. \u201cFamily life is tough, and farm life is tough\u2026 It truly is surviving and persevering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don Brown, the Colorado commissioner of agriculture, is a centennial farmer himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe centennial farms existed long before the days when food came from a grocery store and gas came from a gas pump,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

pmarcus@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers also recognize centennial farms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[281,94,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-agriculture","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106171"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}