Colorado Grain Chain member Craig Seidler of Gooding Farm shares his farm's journey and a time-sensitive partnership opportunity.

I'm Craig Seidler, and my wife Sonya and I are what some would refer to as crazy. Not in the traditional straight-jacket sense, but in our love and dedication to what we do and how we follow our dreams. We are currently crazy goat people, crazy chicken people, crazy hay people, and look forward to being crazy grain people.

Neither of us grew up on a farm, but five years ago, after becoming empty-nesters, we purchased our dream property – 33 acres of irrigated, beautiful farmland in Longmont, CO, complete with a 1910 farmhouse that mice didn't dare live in. After fixing up the house ourselves, befriending the neighbor farmer who was leasing the land, learning tractoring, haying, irrigating (or "irritating" as the neighbor calls it), and poring over thousands of YouTube videos, we have arrived at our next chapter.

While providing organic alfalfa and grass hay to local horse people is fine, we would rather provide nourishment to our Colorado communities. We are big believers in healthy soils = healthy food = healthy people = better world.

We are new members of the Colorado Grain Chain and new to the grain world.

Chains link the past with the present, hold things together, and pull things along. If you've ever seen a chain being made, it's both beautiful and violent. A forming machine takes the steel and bends, contorts, and fuses the links together. I feel like Sonya and I are that last link in the forming machine – being twisted and distorted before finally settling into being a cog in the full chain.

The figurative bending and twisting for us has been the process of navigating the financial, logistical, and knowledge challenges involved in getting from the theoretical to actually delivering organic grains to folks who make them into nourishing foods.

This brings me to my ask. We desperately need to qualify for the Colorado Community Food Access Program in order to financially make a go of this. This is a newer program that essentially refunds 75% of the cost of qualifying equipment to those businesses that serve Low Income Low Access (LILA) geographies and/or accept SNAP/WIC or other food currencies through their retail operations.

What determines a LILA community, you might rightly ask? I'm not sure of the exact demographic formulas used, but HERE is a link to the map that color codes those areas that are "eligible" and "not eligible." You can zoom in down to the street level. Our farm, unfortunately, is just outside (literally across the street from) an eligible area. Because of this, to qualify for this program, we need a Letter of Support from as many retailers as possible that will agree to purchase from us and are in a LILA community and/or accept food currencies.

If you are interested in helping us with this journey and becoming a long-term partner, please let us know! We are planning to grow buckwheat first but will likely branch out from there based on input about what grains are needed most.

A Letter of Support addressing 5 key items that we can discuss together:

The next deadline to submit to the program is September 30, so we'd like to connect by September 15th.

How to get in touch: Text or call Craig at 303-931-2451. 

From there we can work together on the Letter of Support and talk about fun stuff – like your amazing business, what you make, your plans, etc. Also, how your business might qualify for the Colorado Community Food Access Program! This program only runs through 2030, so take advantage.

Thank you and Grain On!

Craig & Sonya Seidler
Gooding Farm