Farm Partner Highlight: Green Junction Farmstead
Rolling up to Green Junction Farmstead, you’re greeted by a brightly colored, hand-painted welcome sign and a very active greenhouse. Dawn Adams, owner and operator of Green Junction, is no stranger to farming and nutrition security. “This is our 10th growing season and we are regenerative, living soil farmers,” she says motioning at the farm behind her. “We grow tons of vegetables for our community through community supported agriculture shares and for the WIC program.” But that’s just the start. Green Junction Farmstead also provides produce for the Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP) and the Community Food Bank of Grand Junction. It was partnering with the Women Infants and Children (WIC) program in Mesa County that put Dawn on her journey to nutrition security farming.
“I initially reached out to the Mesa County Department of Health in their WIC program,” Dawn explains. “They offered farmers to be paid for farm shares, the CSA farm shares, through the WIC program.” Through being a WIC farmer, she is able to sell her produce at farmer’s markets and other outlets via the Double Up Food Bucks program, which allows WIC and SNAP recipients to purchase more fresh fruits and vegetables using their benefits. Dawn became so invested in community nutrition, she joined the Nourish Colorado Board of Directors. “I've worked with that food access nonprofit for, I think, seven years now.”
Dawn’s work with WIC would lead to a partnership that hit close to home. “I do it now concurrently with the Community Food Bank of Grand Junction. “Part of my goal as a farmer is to provide food to people that don't have, not only access to fresh produce and food, but just food in general,” she says. “I've learned over the years that sometimes the food access that they have received is a lot of processed foods and things like that, which I've learned has really been damaging to the health of Americans and our community.”
With that in mind, Dawn’s goal with Green Junction Farmstead was to grow nutritious food that everyone could afford. The way she sees it, everyone deserves nutritious food that is grown locally because it lasts longer and they should be able to receive it for free, too. “That's always been my goal - to provide the community with food.”
Dawn understands that farming is a business, so not all of her produce can be provided for free. She sells Community Supported Agriculture shares through Green Junction Farmstead, which allows community members to receive boxes of fresh produce at the interval they choose for a reasonable price. Some of these shares, she reiterates, are also purchased by the WIC program and by the Community Food Bank of Grand Junction.
Farming isn’t Dawn’s first career, though feeding people has always been her passion. She started in the restaurant business, but discovered that the industry wasn’t the avenue that she felt best fulfilled her passion for nutrition. “So I retired 12 years ago doing that type of work and decided that since we have such a bountiful agriculture system here in the Valley, that this is what I wanted to do.” Dawn pursued the Sustainable Agriculture program through Colorado Mesa University and after completing the program, her husband followed. “The first two years were just me farming and learning to grow food. And then I recruited [my husband] in to help me.”
However, it wasn’t just a passion for feeding people that drove Dawn to find ways to provide fresh produce to those in need. Her own personal experiences were a driving factor, too. “I have been a SNAP recipient and currently still am because of the lack of income that I have as a farmer,” she explains. By being a SNAP recipient and being ingrained in the Grand Valley community, she sees the need for nutrition benefits in the area. “We raise our grandson and we just see the need for it in the schools and how abundant that food program is for free and reduced lunch.” Dawn points out that the free and reduced lunch program and other nutrition programs are essential for families in the Grand Valley. “When you have a 50 or higher percent low income, low food access population, that's where we need to step up in our community to get them fed.”
And so when the chance presented itself to partner with the Community Food Bank of Grand Junction, Dawn jumped. “I'm very grateful to have met Alisha Winger at the Palisade Farmers Market,” she says. Alisha, the Executive Director of CBF, stopped by to purchase produce, but the conversation lead to much more than a single purchase. “She has really designed Community Food Bank in a way that's really dignified and in a way that everybody feels welcomed and they don't feel like they're being exposed as maybe low income or in need,” Dawn says passionately. “It's just kind of a grocery store for the community.”
Dawn says Community Food Bank exceeded her expectations. “I love the way they connect with the local farmers, the local businesses, and are providing just the highest quality food that they can to their consumers.” She is also looking forward to the CBF Mobile Market to kick off again in April, which provides fresh produce, eggs, and dairy products to community members in areas that are distance prohibitive to reaching the Community Food Bank’s building or to those who are unable to travel due to mobility restrictions.
As Green Junction Farmstead and Community Food Bank’s both grow, Dawn looks forward to the impact the two make together growing, too. “I'm kind of picky about where my produce goes because I want the people that get it, that are distributing it or cooking with it or whatever to love and care for it and understand it as much as we do. And I think the Community Food bank does that for sure.”
