PORTRAIT OF A FARM

The Indigenous Farm Hub (IFH) cultivates seventeen acres in Corrales, with four acres in vegetable production and the remainder in hay and cover crops, providing 140 families with produce through their CSA program. The farm is not only a food source but is also a hub of learning, growth, and prosperity building. Its core initiatives include connecting language and land-based learning for students at the Native American Community Academy and other schools; working to strengthen food networks in Indigenous communities; and running a farmer residence program that supports three farmers on fair salaries every year.

People

Clarence Hogue, farm director and director of communications and outreach: I grew up on a farm . . . it’s kind of nice that I’m back where I started, back to my roots.

Merlin Toya-Lucero, farm coordinator: Growing up, I wasn’t really into it. We had some elders back home who did farm, but that wasn’t really practiced by my generation. After maturing, after life humbling me, and learning more about the world and climate change and healthy food and eating . . . I was finally like, I get it. Farming is important. I want to do that.

Alan Brauer, farm facilitator / senior director of initiatives and programs: I grew up on a dairy farm. . . . Farming is kind of in my bones.

DJ Ladabour, FoodCorps service member: I’ve always worked around food. I’ve been a cook. Once I started farming and spending every day outside, taking care of the land, it put me back in a place where I wanted to reconnect.

Rebecca Grashuis, farm-to-school education coordinator: I started off doing traditional medicine practices when I was a kid—that was my first connection working with the land and working within Chicano culture. . . . I got into farming seven years ago. I started off with organic, small-scale urban farms because I thought that it would be easier for people in urban communities to start to build up food systems outside modern food systems that were failing us.

Eileen Shendo, beginning farmer resident for 2022: I’ve been growing with my grandpa and my family since—that’s how we were raised. I think for us as Pueblo people, in order to make our culture and identity, you have to grow. Because for one, we use corn from the moment of birth to death. If we don’t maintain that, we lose everything.

GROWING FOOD, GROWING FARMERS

Alan: We’re growing food; we’re not demonstrating how to grow food. We wanted to ignite love of learning for growing food, but we also wanted to make sure that we were at a scale that we could support people with the food. Thus sixteen acres that we have [at this site] and that we’ve been working with a landowner to purchase one piece at a time.

We want to make sure [IFH] is sustainable and we’re able to grow enough food that we can eventually make sure that the salaries for our staff and the production can make ends meet. There’s about sixty thousand farms that are considered Native-American–run in our country. I think 75 percent of them make less than $10,000 a year, and 92 percent make less than $50,000 a year. Even if $50,000 was a fair income for the farm work that you have to do, when you only have 8 percent of the population of Native farmers that are making that. . . .

So we center our farmer residence program on the vocational aspects of growing food at a production scale. Everything from planting schedules to successive planting to using different varieties of amendments to the soil to using drip tape irrigation to flood irrigation.

Rebecca: A lot of times, farming is taken as unskilled labor, whereas it’s highly skilled. There’s very few people in my age range that I know who can run a production farm like this. If we can start to allocate value to our food systems and to the importance of building resiliency within communities, especially through food, then we can start to see some really lasting change in our health and our connection to each other as people.

Merlin: I always thought farming was like, put a seed in the ground, water it, hope for the best, and it will grow. But there’s so much more to it. Work, commitment, dedication.

Community

Eileen: The First People of New Mexico have been left out a lot in developing food systems. I’m speaking for myself, specifically as an individual from Jemez and Cochiti Pueblos. . . . In Indian Country, our food systems were one of the first means—so whether you look at how we grew or how we lived, or animals, and that sense of our livelihood—[that] were intentionally exterminated. For me a big part in our work with the Indigenous Farm Hub, not only with landowners or traditionalists who are agriculturalists but especially with Native women, is to really see how they can create an economy off what they love.

Clarence: There’s a lot of places in our state where people don’t have access to food as readily as here in Albuquerque. That’s my experience growing up is we had to drive at least thirty miles to get to a grocery store. So we need to start thinking about how we can work more with communities and help them strategize solutions for getting better food access and really supporting local farmers, creating systems so that the most rural communities and farmers can also contribute. The bottom line is really about getting food out to people who need it.

Merlin: Diabetes is a really big issue, especially where I’m from. Around my junior year in high school, I started realizing, I don’t want to get that—I wanted to be that [small] percent of Laguna members that aren’t diabetic and don’t have any preexisting conditions and try to be as healthy as I can.

Investment

Eileen: If people or private funders, whoever, could actually invest in people directly, or with tribes, [farming] would be more self-sustaining. Because right now, there’s millions of dollars—billions—that are going out for food system development. But [the funds] go through large nonprofits, which basically get taken out by indirect costs and overhead, and then end up [telling] farmers, “Go try to do this with $3,000.” Or give $10,000 of seed money, and hopefully it works. And I think that’s the part that is discouraging because it’s really not meeting the need when we know it could. And it’s not supporting systems that have been effective for time immemorial.

Rebecca: If we can build interest, if you start getting kids connected in elementary school—how do you grow a plant? What do you do with compost? What’s in a watershed? And then in high school we have a focus like, if you want to get into agriculture, there’s value in it. There’s respect in it. There’s connection with your ancestors and there’s connection with the generations you’re feeding.

DJ: Farming is a huge aspect in my everyday life—I’m thinking about saving seeds and planning ahead for not only this place but my grandma’s house and other people’s gardens that I’m helping out with.

Climate

Clarence: Water is a big part of what we do here, so if we don’t have the water, we can’t do a whole lot. We have a big irrigation system over there, we have a well that we use, that’s where we get the water to do a lot of our drip tape. We’re lucky that we can do that—a lot of places don’t have that.

Last summer, they told us we were probably only going to get two waterings [from the acequia], maybe May and June, and that was it. . . . They only allow you sixteen hours the one time you get water, and they really monitor you. Even if you’re ending at midnight. Based on that, you know something is different. Something is changing.

Crops

Clarence: We did really good with onions. Eileen: Tomatoes, chard, kale.

Clarence: Corn—we did blue corn and white corn, native corn— Eileen: Chiles.

DJ: Sweet potatoes, peanuts, big leaf kale. We have a vegetable preference survey that we give out to FoodCorps.

Clarence: Certain things grow better at different times. Like peas. But some things hold you through the summer. Even that is an education.

indigenousfarmhub.org

Merlin: I really like the labor; I like not just working with my hands but getting farmer strength. Learning how to properly hold a shovel. It’s rewarding.

DJ: After tasting the difference, going through the whole process of growing [produce] and using it, it’s a lot better. It just tastes a lot better. It feels a lot better too.

Above, left to right: Clarence Hogue, Rebecca Grashuis, Eileen Shendo, and Merlin Toya-Lucero.

Left: DJ Ladabour.

Right: Alan Brauer.

Note: These interviews have been edited for clarity and length. Find longer versions at ediblenm.com.

Reflections From A Farmer In Southern New Mexico

By Shahid Mustafa · Photos by Stephanie Cameron

Somewhere I’d heard that the river flowed almost 1,900 miles from southern Colorado, traversing New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico directly into the Gulf of Mexico. So when I finally had the opportunity to visit the river, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw, or in this case, what I didn’t see.

“Water is life” is an adage both simple and profound in its truth. As a person attempting to produce food, I embrace it as a philosophy and as a practice. So critical and integral to the survival of the majority of life on our planet is water, yet so easily taken for granted as a static and widely available resource.

I have what I consider a very complicated relationship with water. Growing up in Chicago, I often marveled at how vast and powerful Lake Michigan appeared. Standing on the shore, it was easy to be overcome by its awesomeness. I almost drowned in a pool as a child, so sometimes my amazement was coupled with the fear of how powerful and overwhelming a large body of water could be. For the majority of my life, water scarcity never came to mind. I took for granted the annual winter snow, and the seasonal rains of the spring and summer. If I’m honest, I’ll admit that for the most part, I was just plain annoyed with spring showers. Because snow inevitably turned into a hard-packed, frozen, slippery, dangerous obstacle in the path of my daily life, that subsequently melted into a combination of sand, rock salt, mud, and an assortment of contributions from domestic pets, I didn’t look forward to its falling.

When I moved to Las Cruces in January 2006, I couldn’t wait to hike the Organ Mountains and sit next to the mighty Rio Grande River that I had heard so much about. The hike up the mountain was all that I thought it would be—the visit to the Rio Grande, though, not so much. It was completely dry. Somewhere I’d heard that the river flowed almost 1,900 miles from southern Colorado, traversing New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico directly into the Gulf of Mexico. So when I finally had the opportunity to visit the river, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw, or in this case, what I didn’t see. I walked down the bank of the river and “waded” through the sand and sediment to the center of the riverbed. It turned out that, as with many things I’d learned in history, the lore of the mightiness of the Rio Grande was a matter of subjectivity.

Experiencing my first monsoon season, it became apparent that the natural landscape of the desert doesn’t lend itself to efficient water capture. The main road that I regularly rode my bike to work on every morning became what appeared to be a river during the heavy rains, as there was no drainage infrastructure to control runoff or divert the water from the streets. There was pooling in many areas, which provided the conditions for massive waves to be created as vehicles navigated the thoroughfare. What was most interesting, though, was the evaporative rate that, within the span of my eight-hour workday, made it appear that nary a drop of rain had fallen.

Eventually, I learned that the water of the Rio Grande was being impounded about eighty miles north of Las Cruces at the Elephant Butte Dam near Truth or Consequences. The river was dammed in the 1910s to help mitigate issues related to agriculture, such as runoff, evaporation during droughts, and the inequitable appropriation of water. Years later, in 1939, the Rio Grande Compact was ratified between the states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. It was established for the purpose of effecting an equitable apportionment of waters between these states. The Rio Grande is currently under the authority of the United States Bureau of Reclamation through the Rio Grande Project, and the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID) manages the river’s water provided to the southernmost part of the state. (The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District manages the river and irrigation systems in central New Mexico.) For over one hundred years, EBID has been in charge of the surface water of New Mexico’s portion of the Rio Grande Project, meaning the irrigation district operates and maintains the diversion canals, ditches, and drains that provide water for fields of chile, potatoes, alfalfa, and other crops farmed in the Rincon and Mesilla Valleys.

Because it is being fed by the melting snowpack from the mountains of southern Colorado, the Rio Grande has always been impacted by changes in weather patterns. The historical conditions that have affected the availability of surface water throughout the centuries have been exacerbated by both regional population growth and the recent warming weather trends. These conditions have created an untenable situation for New Mexico agricultural producers, especially those wholly dependent on surface water irrigation south of the dam.

From information obtained from EBID on historic water allocations, there has been a significant reduction in available surface water. Between 1979 and 2002, their allocations remained steady at 36 inches, or 3 acre-feet per year. Subsequently, the allocations have varied from as high as 36 inches in 2008 to as low as 3 inches in 2013. The average allotment over the past twenty years has been around 14 inches. According to data obtained from EBID, the allocation in 2022 was 6 inches. To offer some perspective, pecan trees, which are a naturally heavily water-dependent crop, require about 4 acre-feet per year, so the balance of water necessary short of the allotment must come from wells supplied by groundwater aquifers, which are restored by surface water. Well water from shallow wells tends to be brackish, which means it contains a high level of dissolved solids, making it high in salts. When salt levels are high in the water, most plants have a difficult time taking up the water; this produces a drought-like effect, causing the plants to wilt or die. Producers who are heavily dependent on well water rely on available surface water to flood and push accumulated solids farther away from the roots of their crops. The reduced surface water availability puts their crop production in jeopardy of lesser yields or irreversible crop loss.

The challenge of managing water distribution under current conditions is widespread. Not only are individual farmers struggling with decreased availability, but there is also dispute at the state and federal level as to what the solution should be. In 2013, Texas brought a case to the US Supreme Court against New Mexico and Colorado that alleges farmers using wells to irrigate their crops are depleting the Rio Grande water that New Mexico is required to deliver to Texas under the previous Rio Grande Compact. The decade-long case has been wrought with counterclaims and disputes, requiring input from entities including multiple water districts, the cities of El Paso and Las Cruces, the state of New Mexico, and farmers associations. A pending agreement has been reached, and at the time this story went to press was awaiting acceptance by the Supreme Court.

Perhaps due to the pending litigation, or the politicization of the topic of climate change, it has been hard to find producers who are willing to go on record to discuss their personal experience with water allocation, for fear of some level of repercussion. I find it strange that something like that would even be a consideration, but in my discussions with the few I have had the pleasure of talking to, I have concluded that we are facing a monumental issue that, considering its potential impact, seems relatively ignored by a large section of the general public. Population growth continues, and with growth comes greater demand on resources and infrastructure.

Sam Calhoun has been farming orchards for forty-four years. His company, Calhoun’s Farm Services, is a custom service organization that works with orchards. Calhoun’s, based in Anthony, does a lot of custom work to establish orchards from La Union to La Mesa. According to Calhoun, “From 1980 to 2000, we had, for the most part, all the water we wanted. Irrigation was mostly flooded. We didn’t know how good we had it.” Now most farms are heavily dependent on groundwater from wells they have had installed. Calhoun says that the most obvious impact that he sees in response to the reduced allotment is farmers’ increased costs to continue to operate. “Everybody has had to spend a lot of money on the infrastructure. There are more and more people using drip tape, subsurface irrigation, and sprinklers in orchards. The onion and lettuce market is mostly all drip tape.” On his orchards, he has added subsurface drip irrigation, which incorporates a buried drip irrigation tube to evenly distribute water and reduce evaporative rates. His orchard is not 100 percent drip irrigated, but he has noticed the efficiencies in incorporating the system. “It has helped our efficiency in very sandy soils and has helped our efficiency as far as timing. On extremely hot days, we can deliver water quicker.” When asked about what his plans are in regard to dealing with the impact of reduced allotments, Calhoun said, “We think one day it’ll come back, but nobody knows when that’s going to happen. We hope it snows again.”

As critical a resource as water is to our daily lives, especially in the desert of the Southwest, I am always surprised at the level at which most of us take it for granted. Even small farmers such as myself get too comfortable with the anticipated availability of water. Many of us have implemented drip irrigation systems to conserve water, and try to practice farming methods that help develop healthy soils, which support water retention. But the fact is we are always at the mercy of environmental conditions largely outside of our control. The challenge of year-round vegetable production relying mostly on well water has led me to appreciate rainfall in a way that I never have before.

In December, I attended a Zoom webinar hosted by Professor Geno A. Picchioni from the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at New Mexico State University. The subject was the use of saline groundwaters and their effects on growth and secondary metabolites such as antioxidants in several native halophytes, which are salt-tolerant plant species. Picchioni presented some encouraging data, which supported the possibility of there being benefits in planting crops, such as quail bush and four-wing saltbush, that produce secondary metabolites for dietary supplements. This suggests that some functional food additives would actually thrive in the salty soils that we are likely to have to contend with moving forward. But still, I long for the monsoon season that I haven’t experienced since 2006. I’m somewhat saddened by the sight of the dry bed of the Rio Grande every time I have the chance to drive over a bridge that crosses it, and I wonder how much of the mineralization that clogs my irrigation emitters and builds up on my showerheads and faucets affects my personal biology in the way I see it affecting my vegetable crops.

Again, I return to the adage profound in both its simplicity and truth: water is life. As we continue to choose to inhabit a region whose geological and vegetative landscape reflects its historical experience with long periods of drought, and occasional abundant rainfall, we must face that we might have to consider adjustments to how we all manage our use of water and what our expectations might be. The ultimate result may be completely out of our control, but we can no longer ignore the long-term effects that will be determined by how responsibly we regard and collectively steward this most critical and finite resource.

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