I’ve long admired farmers, ranchers and others who work in the agriculture industry.

I worked on a hog farm a couple of months the summer before I started college. And I occasionally accompanied my best friend and his father, a veterinarian, on some of his house calls. Make that barn and corral calls. But that’s about the extent of my personal exertions in the sector.

My grandparents were farmers, though. And the small town in Eastern Colorado in which I grew up was surrounded by farms, most of them growing wheat. Trucks would rumble past my house hauling grain to the elevator just down the road.

I became more acquainted with farmers and ranchers as a newspaper journalist in Western Colorado and especially Oregon. I worked for three years for a weekly publication covering the agriculture industry in Oregon as well as California, Idaho and Washington. As reporters, we used to joke we wrote about cows and plows. But it was a lot more complicated than that. I ended up covering water law. While I don’t know anything about rocket science or brain surgery — or, for that matter, rocket surgery — I suspect water law comes close in its complexity.

I’ve been fortunate during my tenure with the Business Times to continue to cover the agriculture industry, including the peaches and wine grapes grown in the Grand Valley and cattle raised in Mesa County.

I was reminded of the importance of agriculture in a recent interview with Danielle Trotta, the new manager of the Colorado Proud program. The resulting story appears on page 5 of this issue. Trotta is no stranger to the ag industry, of course, in training or experience. She holds two degrees from Colorado State University and managed a cattle ranch in Eastern Colorado for nearly a decade. 

Colorado Proud promotes food and other agricultural products grown, raised and made in Colorado and makes the connections between producers and their customers. A total of more than 3,000 farmers, ranchers, retailers, restaurants and associations participate in the program. A logo makes it easier for consumers to identify and purchase Colorado products.

In one sense, there is no more important industry than agriculture in producing the food that sustains people. 

In another sense, consider the Colorado agriculture industry contributes
$47 billion annually to the Colorado economy and employs more than 195,000 people.

August is Colorado Proud Month and an appropriate time to reflect on all the agriculture industry brings to the table in every meaning of that phrase.
The next time you bite into a succulent Palisade peach, sip a glass of elegant Grand Valley wine or savor a beef steak grilled to perfection, think about the people who produced those products and all their work, sacrifice and risk. Then join me in my admiration for farmers, ranchers and others who work in the agricuture industry.

Phil Castle is editor of the Business Times. Reach him at phil@thebusinesstimes.com or 424-5133.