About 100 people gathered at Mike Kosman’s farm Saturday to pick approximately 40,000 ears of sweet corn to donate to the Food Bank of the Rockies.

Kosman had doubled the number of acres he devoted to the project this year, thus doubling the amount of corn that will be dispersed to food pantries across Colorado. Some of the corn will go to Caring Ministries of Morgan County.

Quite a few of the harvesters came from the Denver Metro area to join with local people on the project, including kids from the area, employees of area fertilizer companies and the Fort Morgan Young Farmers, Kosman said.

Working with Kosman on the project was Bruce Postovit of DeKalb, which was one of the companies that donated to the project.

This is kind of a personal project, Postovit said.

DeKalb donated the sweet corn seed, Crop Production Services donated fertilizer and pesticides, Simplot let those on the project use its equipment, Pope Farms provided the bags, bins and pallets to collect the corn and Cenex Harvest States provided food for a lunch after the harvest was done, he said.

The Food Bank of the Rockies hauled the harvest away in a semi-truck to distribute around the state, Postovit said.

People who go to food pantries rarely receive fresh food, he noted.

Without Kosman, the project could never happen, Postovit said, because he provided the four acres, water and loving care needed to raise the crop.

Last year, this project distributed about 20,000 ears of sweet corn. After that, organizers started planning another harvest last winter and the crop was planted in May.

Sweet corn takes a lot more work than field corn that is used for cattle feed, Kosman said.

That is why so many people were needed to do the harvest, he said.

Talking the crowd before work started, Postovit told the volunteers how much he appreciated their help and how important they are to the project.

Part of the instructions included making sure the younger volunteers stayed back from the equipment, and how to contact 9-1-1 with the right address if something should happen.

“Everybody be alert,” Postovit said.

Each corn plant provides one or two ears of corn, but some of them were not yet ready to eat. Kosman told the volunteers to leave those ears. Cattle would eat them later, so they would not be wasted.

Contact Times News EditorDan Barker at 970-867-5651 ext 231 or business@fmtimes.com