Gwen Garcelon is the founder of the Roaring Fork Food Alliance, which focuses its efforts on supporting our local food system in the valley and bringing awareness to sustainability, climate change, and other initiatives, such as talking to ranchers about their experiences.
Katalina Villarreal: So you are a part of the Roaring Fork Food Alliance?
Gwen Garcelon: Yeah, I started becoming really interested in our local food system when my kids were small. And a friend and I started as the Roaring Fork Food Policy Council. It was 2010. There were a lot of food policy councils springing up around the country to act as a support to local food systems. And over the next couple of years, we put together a really diverse advisory circle of people and came up with a vision for what the group would be focusing on.
Villarreal: Well, would you mind just stating what you do?
Garcelon: Yeah. I'm a sustainability consultant. That's one of the hats that I wear. I Do a lot of different things. But over the years that I've been tracking what's unfolding in terms of climate on the planet — now we are starting to experience what many of us have known is coming. And at the center of it is a real fragility in our global food system, which so many people are now dependent on.
Villarreal: Yeah, for sure. I'm interested in that piece, and then also if you just wanna tell me who is on the panel.
Garcelon: Yeah. Parker Nieslanik, who's third generation here. Most people have heard of the Nieslanik family and the ranches here. Jason Sewell, who stewards the Sunfire Ranch, and the Sewell Ranch is a heritage ranch here in Carbondale. Kade Gianinetti, whose family immigrated here long, long ago and were part of the ranching community for a long time. And Jared Kerst, who had Rivendell Ranch up on Missouri Heights for several years, and who grew up in a ranching family on the East Slope.
Villarreal: Thank you. I wanna learn more about what brought them all together.
Garcelon: Yeah. Over the course of a couple of years, I started to have conversations with as many of the local ranchers that I could connect with, and there started to be this group of next-generation guys who had really interesting stories. I just thought it would be an interesting angle to hear from this next generation of local land stewards and get to hear directly from them the ideas that they have for the future.
Villarreal: Yeah. That's exciting. So then with the panel, have they prepared anything that you want people to be aware of?
Garcelon: I want people to know the things that they've tried. For instance, Jason Sewell has an amazing story of the relationship that he built with a young farmer named Casey Piscura, and the partnership that they built over several years really increased the amount of food that was being produced at Sunfire Ranch. And it was really significant what Casey created there. He started something that many people are familiar with called Wild Mountain Seeds. And, you know, seeds are, of course, the building block that is non-negotiable to a local food system. He did so much work there, pioneering new strains and hybridizations of things that would be able to thrive in this high-altitude, drought-prone area. And that was a really important experiment that he and Jason fostered. I think there's a lot to learn from that in terms of bringing farmers onto ranches and diversifying the kinds of food that are being produced or that could be produced. So I want them to tell their stories: what they've seen as they've been part of the families that they've been in, the projects that they've undertaken, and the things that they've tried. I'm excited for people to hear about that.
The conversation takes place Wednesday, September 16, at the Crystal Theatre from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
