Sustainable farming gets a boost in this county — and gives a boost to customers : Shots

A purple daikon radish grown at Ollin Farms in Longmont, Colo., and other vegetables are prepared to be served at a meeting to discuss support for small Colorado farmers in December.

Rachel Woolf for NPR

In a chilly storeroom piled high with fall produce, Jimena Cordero is chopping up vegetables and fanning them out onto trays.

Cordero is the farm manager at Ollin Farms, not far from Boulder, Colo. — she’s put together bright pink and purple radishes, apple, fresh turnips.

“This is a green luobo,” she explains, as she expertly cuts the oblong radish into rounds.

These locally grown vegetables aren’t just pretty. They’re being prepared to make a case to state lawmakers at a meeting later that afternoon.

“You can have a super colorful veggie tray for a meeting, and everybody can get on the same vibration, eating the same good, healthy food,” says Cordero’s dad, Mark Guttridge, who started this farm with his wife, Kena, 17 years ago.

Mark Guttridge, farmer and co-owner at Ollin Farms, feeds the chickens. The farm benefits from a county program that helps small growers get their produce to more people.

Rachel Woolf for NPR

That vibration and the good, healthy food are part of the case Guttridge wants to make that farmers can play an important role in public health nutrition programs. At the meeting with about a dozen local farmers, two state representatives, and the Colorado commissioner of agriculture, Guttridge will explain how Boulder county has made creative investments in his farm…