Archives for December 2014

Santa came early this year and brought us a new farm. I cannot wait to share this news with you all. So grab a cup of tea or a glass of wine and sit back.

As you know, we have been looking for new land prospects for the past couple of years. I have thrown ideas out that did not have the sticking power, but finally, we have found a match. Beginning in January we will be expanding our operation onto 12 new acres at the Los Poblanos Open Space off of Montano near the river. Here are the details…

We will NOT be moving from our current home base in the South Valley. We continue to add infrastructure and energy into the farm there and that will continue. This new land will be an expansion to bring more local food and agricultural eduction to our community. With this addition, our “Back 40” has become 52 acres.

Who’s land is it? The land is owned by the people of ABQ. The City purchased the 138 acres of open space in 1997. It is and has been home to Rio Grande Community Farm and Scott Rasband’s hay fields since 1997. We are honored to join such a great team of growers.

Personally, this new land will be a full circle journey for this New Mexican kid. The open space is bordered on the north side by my elementary school, Alvarado. To the west is the historic (and epic) Los Poblanos Ranch where we started the farm in 2003. So to bring our farm back into the North Valley fields, where I played as a kiddo, is very nostalgic for me. And it feels good to be back.

It is hard to put the potential of this land into perspective. 138 acres less than 10 minutes from downtown. I would challenge you to show me one city in our nation that has made such an investment into its agricultural traditions. I cannot give you one example. So I have to give a big thank you to the City of ABQ for making this a possibility not only for our farm but for our community. This is huge opportunity folks and we hope to make it a flagship agricultural area for our town, state, and region.
You might be asking yourself the question of how this expansion will affect your farm?

Let’s start with visitors. Our South Valley farm is phenomenal and as close as it is to ABQ, (just 12 minutes south of the Big I) we have challenges getting folks down there. I think there is a perception that it is just too far away. So when we were looking for the perfect expansion opportunity, proximity within the city was huge. I really see the Los Poblanos Open Space as The Hub for the city. It is the gateway that ties ABQ together with Los Ranchos and the Westside. Unique in that all three distinct areas of ABQ come together and border each other at the farm.

So our goal is simple, bring people closer to their food. This goal of the farm is a shared goal of the City of ABQ. We both realize that great things happen when the community engages with their food.

With this, we believe that it is time to make a stand…well actually we are going to make a Farm Stand. This Stand will be very interactive and combine a major U-Pick component that we just do not have in the city right now. Secondly, this Stand will be equipped to educate customers on the benefits of local agriculture and CSA farms. We plan to operate a retail market as well as have CSA pick-ups.

Ultimately the vision is about you. Too often I have seen farms turn into entertainment centers and lose sight of their roots. So we will not have train rides or inflatable jump castles for your kids. What we are going to build is an authentic agricultural experience to bring you closer to your food in a convenient location. We will house animals there and host animal husbandry classes for you. We will sell tomatoes but also teach you how to grow tomatoes in your garden. Grow okra for you to harvest but also hold cooking classes to show you how to cook the little dudes.

I look forward to hosting an Open House (or Farm) with you all as soon as we get it all cleaned up and ready for our members. Thank you for your support.

Farmer Monte

First things first, the holiday schedule. With the way that Christmas falls this year on a Thursday, I want to give our crew (and me) some well deserved time off so we are running the same schedule that we did for Thanksgiving. Please make a note to avoid unwanted deliveries.

Monday Deliveries/Pick-Ups: No change for all greater ABQ, Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Las Cruces orders.

Tuesday Deliveries/Pick-Ups: All orders as usual. Please note this will be the ONLY daytime East of the river deliveries for ABQ.

Wednesday Deliveries: No change, but please note this will be the ONLY day for Westside daytime delivery.

Thursday Deliveries: ABQ Night Deliveries will be made on Tuesday Night. Whole Foods pick-up will be Monday.

Friday Deliveries: All ABQ deliveries will move to Tuesday. All Santa Fe deliveries will be made on Monday.

Saturday Deliveries: Please move your orders to Tuesday/Wednesday deliveries.

Second order of biz this week is hard cider. We finally got all of the legal and paperwork done to ship our hard cider out of the state. This coincidentally lines up perfectly with the season of giving (wink,wink). So if you want to send a friend, family member, or favorite business associate a case of our cider, we will take care of everything for you. All you need to do is email, or call 681-4060 to set this up. We can take care of all your holiday shopping needs in 15 minutes so you’ll have time to…well, drink a cider maybe. Or catch up on Cold Yoga??

OK, enough housekeeping for a week. Back to our regularly scheduled program…your food. Have you ever eaten an eggplant that looked like Pinocchio? Enjoyed a carrot that had two legs? Made a salad with a corkscrew cucumber? I know I sure have and every time I do I wonder why we tell our kids to “quit playing with your food.” Shouldn’t we promote having fun with our food. After all, fun is usually very sustainable. But we never see the Richard Nixon eggplant in the stores, we only see perfection. Why?

Here is the harsh reality that I have heard from growers throughout our region. Farmers lose about 40% of the harvest to imperfections. None of these blemishes affect the flavor or freshness of the produce, but still they are not welcome at grocery stores. And when a grower has to compost almost half their harvest, what do you think happens to the price of the produce that makes the grade for quality? Yup, you guessed it, you pay more for it.

Wendell Berry famously wrote that “eating is an agricultural act.” So what we choose to eat will determine how our agricultural landscape will look. In reality though, grocery stores have no interest in risking lost sales by offering blemished but fresh food. They won’t take the risk.

But we can and we do. The reason that we can offer such great value for the quality of the food you receive is because on our farm, we harvest everything.

And building from last week’s newsletter, as we work directly with the growers, we are able to find a home for these not so perfect looking cucumbers and peppers (etc). We want fresh produce not perfect looking produce.

I wanted to share this with you to help put your food choices in perspective. You are not only gaining access to some of the freshest food around, but you are also changing the food system by giving our growers a home for their imperfect produce. Or as one of our members eloquently called them “the Originals.”

So this holiday season we will celebrate the Originals in our fields and in our lives. Maybe in the end, our blemishes end up giving us deeper character? At least that’s what I tell myself.

Have a wonderful weekend.
Farmer Monte

First up this week, a heads up. For the last few years, we have been running a sweet offer that when you pre-fund your membership account for $1,000 we add on a $100 bonus to your account. We are going to keep doing it, but I want to run it seasonally. So we are going to continue this offer through the month of December, then after that, it will reappear only seasonally. This is a great deal to enjoy 10% savings on your food. Email for more info or to add this to your account. Now, let’s get back into food. And not just any food, but local food.

You see, I have been having this feeling that the local food scene is changing. I am not sure if it is actually changing or if I just want it to change so I sense it. I think a therapist might call that projecting?? But something is changing for me, which is a good thing because after all this is a food movement and not a food snapshot, right?

So the movement started with a direction and with a slogan that reminded us to “Buy Local.” It was everywhere and one of the greatest marketing campaigns of our time was underway. Awareness grew. New local suppliers hit the scene. Money was actually staying closer to home rather than flowing away to some faceless bank account this side of the Cayman Islands. These were and have been great things to see in our emerging local food system.

But does “Buy Local” have staying power? Will decades of sunsets pass with folks still be beating the “Buy Local” drum? I don’t think so. And here is why…

Buy local is too superficial. It’s cute, but we need something with more meat to it. More substance. I mean what is the definition of local? My backyard. My city. 100 miles. My state. My watershed? No one has ever agreed on the definition of local. And when I see these kinds of ambiguous lines being drawn in the sand, I think we need to take a pause. The question we should be asking ourselves is not what the definition of local is, but what is the point? Why do we really care about local food? Is it really about miles or is it deeper than that?

2014 concludes 15 years for me that I have been farming. I’ve lived on farms, worked on farms and fortunately started a farm. And you know what the most boring thing to talk about when it comes to farming is, food miles. UPS and marathon runners talk about miles and pat each other on the back. Farmers like to talk about stories and about families and about bears eating peaches in their trees. These are the stories that matter, not dissecting miles.

So if miles don’t tell us the whole local food story, what is a better yardstick for us to measure? The answer is pretty simple, hours. How many hours does it take to get from the field to your kitchen? This may seem pretty straightforward, but in the produce world it is everything.

Hours probably tell you a lot about miles and how far away the food is coming from, but there is something more important that they let us know, relationships. If you are buying produce from a warehouse like most grocery stores do, there is no relationship to the grower. So produce is harvested then sent to the warehouse where it awaits an order that may or may not ever come. Every day that it is waiting for that order, it gets older. Honestly, it is probably over a week old by the time that it hits any store.

Besides expanding our own production, we now have 4 farms in the Arizona and Northern Mexico area to get us the freshest produce when our fields are in their winter dormancy. So instead of calling a warehouse and asking what is sitting in their cooler, we call the farmers and ask them to harvest green beans or zucchini (etc) for us when we need them. No one else in New Mexico can offer you such a direct relationship to growers on a year-round basis.

When we engage in grower to grower relationships like this and cut out middlemen, the growers get more money for their harvests and you get more value for your buck. It is so simple and the way we want our local food landscape to look moving forward here. It is a win-win situation for everyone and we keep building these partnerships for you.

Enjoy,
Farmer Monte