Rotary Club of Fort Collins on Feb. 24 presented its Master Agriculturalist Award to Andrew Grant, president and general manager of Grant Family Farms in Wellington.

The award recognized Grant for playing a major role in expanding a small family farm into a successful organic specialty and commodity crops farm distributing products locally and nationally.

Grant participated in the development of the Colorado Organic program passed by the Colorado legislature, and Grant Family Farms became the first organic farm certified by the state. He also developed advanced packaging, merchandising and branding of produce to a broad variety of markets.

In 2007, the farm launched a Community Supported Agriculture program to connect the community to farmers. Grant also took the lead in having the farm certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In the last 10 years, Grant Family Farms has given more than 1,000,000 pounds of fresh produce to food banks in Colorado and Texas. Grant was also co-founder of the Tsunami Boat Project in Thailand that has built 152 new fishing boats for those who lost their sole source of income in the Asian tsunami. In addition, Grant has actively lobbied for immigration reform.

The Service to Agriculture Award was presented to the Larimer County Farmers’ Market in Fort Collins, which will be celebrating its 35th season this year. The market, one of the oldest in the state, was started in 1976 by a small group of master gardeners to allow backyard growers to sell excess produce and to serve as a fund-raiser for the Larimer County Extension Office.

The market continues to operate Saturdays throughout the summer at the Larimer County Courthouse Offices Building through the volunteer efforts of master gardeners, with support from the horticulture extension agent, Alison Stoven O’Connor and extension staff. Master gardeners oversee all logistics of the market, including vendors, customers and activities.