Albuquerque the Interview

The Planted Seed

Monte Skarsgard is helping to grow the concept of community farming—several hundred weekly ABQ deliveries of fresh produce at a time.

Learning the ins and outs of farming, with a Community Supported Agriculture program in place, inspired Monte Skarsgard to create something similar in Albuquerque.

In the early 2000s, Skarsgard worked on a farm located just outside of Seattle. Locals would visit the farm once a week to pick up produce that had been harvested. At the same time, the home delivery model was picking up steam in Seattle. The popularity of home delivery combined with the agricultural scene created an environment where people would get together to “eat tacos and drink beers” and talk about different models that their farm was implementing for sales. It was exciting for Skarsgard to see wholesale-type farms flourishing, which contributed to him opening his own farm.

ATM: When did you start your own farm? MONTE SKARSGARD: So starting the farm back here in 2003, I loved the CSA model that I was used to. But also I really liked the home delivery aspect of instead of having to go to the farmers market, and farmers markets are great, but they're very finicky on sales. Like if it's raining out, then people stay home, but you've harvested all of your crops. So I was really looking for a way to be more consistent with our sales, and that everything that we were taking out of our fields, to make sure that we were selling that stuff and finding a home for them. So yes, we started this kind of mixed CSA with home delivery. And it worked out great. I feel like we had really good success and really good demand, and a kind of welcoming by the community. ATM: What brought you to Albuquerque? MS: I was born and raised in Albuquerque. I know Albuquerque very well. I know New Mexico very well. And so it felt great to kind of have this CSA type connection with people. And then they were able to connect to the farm and really support us and kind of see us grow over the years and over the seasons. And so what I really try to do is connect people with their food for sure, but also connect them with our food and everything that we were doing.

ATM: What have you done to make that connection with the community? MS: We've done just a lot of various things

over the years. We've done a You-PickTurkey for Thanksgiving, where we raise the animals, we raise the turkeys, and then had families come out and actually be a part of the harvest for that. And, You-Pick-Patches, if you can think about it, we've done it, we've thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It just kind of has grown over the years with more consumer feedback... It's been, I think, a kind of slow but good progression of adding thoughtful products to our offerings and not just adding stuff because we're trying to just fill space on our website. It's really trying to develop that partnership with all the vendors, the ranchers, and the growers we work with. And it's definitely not quick, it really takes time to get to know a vendor and kind of see where any bottlenecks or hang ups might be. But at the end of the day, we've got a really strong partnership with many ranchers and vendors in Albuquerque and throughout New Mexico. We're in a good spot right now. ATM: That's great that you do the reaching out for your customers so if they do want to support local you're kind of doing the work for them. MS: I think people really trust that if we're coming up with a new product, that it's a high quality product and it's a healthy product as well and that it is as local as possible. The chemicals are not going to be in there. The preservatives are not going to be in there. And yeah, really kind of just develop that trust with families over the years... We've got a lot of very loyal customers and people who really like what we do and just are a fantastic support for us. ATM: Speaking of your customers, about how many people do you serve in the greater Albuquerque area. MS: We're doing about 900 a week. I would say, probably 600 of those are in the Albuquerque area. Throughout the state, we go up to Los Alamos, Santa Fe, Placitas, and then the East Mountains, but also go down into Los Lunas, T or C, Las Cruces and Ruidoso.

ATM: Are your customers primarily individuals or businesses? MS: Individuals. We do some businesses, but the majority of our sales are direct to consumers, so, you know, dropping off at people's doorsteps and not necessarily dropping off at a business. I mean, we do like to work with businesses if that works out, but almost 100% of our customers right now are all houses and families and individuals. ATM: Do you only work with local growers and ranchers or do you also get product from out-of-state sources? MS: We do not take the hard line that if it's not produced in New Mexico, we're not going to get it because of people who enjoy citrus and things like that. I don't want to tell people they can't have an incredible orange. If we just have to cross the border in Arizona to find that incredible orange and great producers, then I will do that. We feed people 52 weeks out of the year and so we're working with Colorado, Arizona, (some parts of) Texas, southern Colorado. We even have a farm that we know in Sonora, Mexico, in northern Mexico, (owned by) a great family we've known for a while. They are able to produce incredible tomatoes at a time that we just can't get them around here locally... For me, a lot of it is the personal interaction and the partnerships that we're able to develop on a real personal basis rather than just kind of drawing lines. ATM: You keep growing and growing. I know that there had been talk about some expansion into the old Model Pharmacy near Carlisle and Lomas. Is that happening? MS: We are actually just finishing that up right now. It's been, as you can imagine, a very interesting time with labor and trying to get this thing built out. And also to just try and have enough talented people to staff it because we really want to do it right. The space is absolutely fantastic. We're just about finished with the space and we're going to be opening a very market heavy cafe. It will be kind of our first brick and mortar space that we've had, which is exciting. It'll be kind of a 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. concept where you can kind of come in and have a farmers market. Since the pandemic, the demand for our prepared food offerings has been through the roof. And so we are going to be highlighting and focusing all the work that our bakers and chefs are doing. There's a lot of prepared meal offerings (out there), but none of those businesses are really supporting the local producers. The idea is to have very convenient food, but all of this stuff is made with organic produce and meats from local ranchers. ATM: I know a lot of people in the community, especially in that neighborhood, are looking forward to it opening. MS: I know it's been slower than we were hoping for, but at the end of the day, the product is going to be fantastic. And the food that's coming out of there is just amazing. I'm just really excited. People are gonna be blown away at the flavors and also just the value that (comes from) working with local producers. We want to make local food as approachable as possible for our community. —RM