Archives for April 2015

OK amigos, last reminder about the Spring Plant Sale and 1st Annual (of many) New Mexico Hard Cider Festival. May 2nd. Saturday. 9am-5pm at our warehouse, 3435 Stanford Dr NE. We will have plants and cider available all day. Judging from previous years, get there early for the plants. I cannot believe how many plants we sell on that day. We will have more plants than ever, but early bird gets the worm in this case. Hope to see you then.

From the fields… and so the harvest begins. I was talking to our farm manager, Shauna, this week and we both agreed that this is some of the best looking spring greens that either of us have ever seen. Just gorgeous. I wish that I could hang it on my wall and call it art. But I will just enjoy a salad instead.

I really think this frustrating slow cool start to Spring is the reason for such a beautiful harvest. You see, tender greens do not like the heat. Their leaves are sensitive and easily sunburn. That burn manifests itself in a bitter taste. You will not find anything but earthy sweetness on these guys. So maybe that is the silver lining in our otherwise slow start to spring. Enjoy them.

Grass fed beef. A rancher and friend, Steve, cultivates over 80 acres in ABQ’s South Valley. He raises various animals and always likes to offer them to us first. These are all grass-fed grass-finished animals for our members who have been asking/looking for that. We do not get these animals very often, so if the grass-finished is important to you, stock up now. They will go quickly. We only have about 500 lbs which seems like a lot, but will disappear.

Speaking of beef, this just hit me, but we will be selling all of our meats next week at the plant sale. If you do not order meats because you are not home (or whatever reason), come on out to the Plant Sale and bring a cooler to shop for your summer meats. We have never had such a great variety of meats than we do right now. Locally raised. Respectfully harvested. The way meats should be. I think you will notice and appreciate the difference.

Lastly this week, I just want to share something that has been on my mind a bunch recently—positivity. Maybe it is because the spring is filled with so much optimism around the farm or maybe it is because I am starring down the barrel of my 40th birthday this year. But for whatever reason, this idea of positivity has been showing itself in my personal life and within the business lately.

To be completely honest with you, we are in the midst of some of the greatest turnover that the farm has ever seen. That I have ever experienced. By all accounts, this should be a time that I’m stressed out and freaking out. But I am not. I feel a clarity of purpose and a deep sense of positivity unlike I have felt in the past.

From the time we broke ground on the farm we have had our share of naysayers who like to throw rocks at our model or our mission. I think by the 2nd week of farming in ABQ, I realized that we could not please everyone. It was a hard pill to swallow but I also found liberty in it too. If you cannot please everyone, then don’t try to. Fine tune your focus/vision and then try like heck to silence the noise. And that is where I find myself and the farm right now, trying to silence the noise and remain laser focused on the positive things that have built this farm.

This has been a good time for me to remember that forest fires are nature’s way to bring new life and growth back to the land. It is not easy to live through the fire, but the forest rebounds healthier and more sustainable because of it.

So I want to get ahead of any rumor mill that you may hear and be very transparent with you. Will there be some new faces around here? Yes. But I also have never felt more certain or assured about the place and direction that the farm is going. Furthermore, it has not and will not affect our food or service for one moment. This farm is greater than any one individual. This much I know. Thanks for all of your support and positive energy.

Farmer Monte

Reminder about the Spring Plant Sale and 1st Annual (of many) New Mexico Hard Cider Festival. May 2nd. Saturday. 9am-5pm at our warehouse, 3435 Stanford Dr NE. We will have plants and cider available all day. Judging from previous years, get there early for the plants. I cannot believe how many plants we sell on that day. We will have more plants than ever, but early bird gets the worm in this case. Hope to see you then.

Second piece of housekeeping this week is a call for some more help around here. Our sales and members have been growing and look to continue to grow into the summer. With that, we need some more help around here.

We are currently looking for some help with our warehouse prep and packing. If you have a Black Thumb and still would like to be a part of our team, we can use you. No grocery or produce experience needed (we train well around here), but we are looking for folks with great positive energy, attentive to details, and with a passion for healthy foods and the local food movement. These two positions will be full time.

In light of these job postings, let me just quickly say that we are so fortunate for the people we have working here. I slap my name on the newsletter so people see my name more than others, but we truly have a great team here. Every time we have a tour or show people the operation, no one ever leaves mentioning our delivery vans or tractors. It is our team that always sticks with folks.

There is not a lot of money to be made in farming and healthy foods. Competitive price pressure from bigger stores makes it very difficult to follow the dollars. With that, everyone here at the farm really works hard knowing that we are fighting the good fight. In the David and Goliath world of feeding people, the small dude is not supposed to win. Not only are we not supposed to win, but we should not even be in the game. But every day as we all show up here, we prove that wrong. And little by little the landscape of local foods is changing. This is what keeps us all fired up and coming back for more.

On a national level, sales of Organic products were up 11% in 2014 over 2013. Sure those aren’t any Silicon Valley start-up numbers, but they show a very promising direction for the state of Organics nationally. Organics has seen growth better than 10% year over year for over 2 decades. If you are reading the tea leaves, this really shows that eating healthy chemical-free food is not some fad like some folks once thought Organics would be.

Additionally, it also shows that Organics is not the “Yuppie- Food” that people once criticized. With more Organic production, we are seeing three important things transpire—increase in availability, increase in quality, and a decrease in price. All of these things are positive steps for any food movement. Change is happening and with continued/sustained double-digit sales growth, it does not seem to be going away.

I have said for a long time and still believe that Organic agriculture is a viable way to feed an expanding population. Organic food has historically been more expensive because of demand-side pressures rather than supply-side issues. Meaning that the demand for Organic products has outpaced the increase in supply every year. When that happens with any product, you will see increased price pressure.

Now, as more local, regional, and national producers choose Organic growing techniques, you/we will all see prices continue to drop. I think soon (if we are not there already) it will seem silly to hear folks use the excuse “I cannot afford to eat Organically.” That argument just does not hold true any more.

This makes me smile, I have to say, because from the beginning our goal has been to feed entire communities, and not just parts of the community.

Happy munching,
Farmer Monte

Reminder about the Spring Plant Sale and 1st Annual (of many) New Mexico Hard Cider Festival. May 2nd. Saturday. 9am-5pm at our warehouse, 3435 Stanford Dr NE. We will have plants and cider available all day. Judging from previous years, get there early for the plants. I cannot believe how many plants we sell on that day. We will have more plants than ever, but early bird gets the worm in this case. And since I love the Kentucky Derby, we will be showing the race projected onto the wall too.

OK, now on to the farm, or farmers’ markets more specifically. Every year in the spring I like to write a newsletter to let our members (you) know our feelings about the farmers’ markets. I feel that transparency of purpose in life alleviates a lot of confusion. So let me lay some of this out and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask .

From the day we broke ground on the farm, farmers’ markets have not been a part of our business plan or overall vision for what we want this farm to be. You can say a lot about farmers’ markets, but the one thing you never hear about them is the word consistency. A rain storm, cool weather, 4th of July, and/or a road closure can kill your sales at a market. When you really boil it down, the farmers’ markets are not actually for the farmers, they are for the community to come out and socialize.

There is no cover charge and no minimum purchase that you have to make at a farmers’ market. So what ends up happening is folks bring the dog and the kids and leave the shopping bags at home. It is an event more than a shopping experience. And that inconsistency was never going to work for our farm financially. We needed consistent support in order to expand our fields, hire more farmers, and feed more mouths in our community. Fortunately, we have found that consistent support through our members and been able to grow for you and with you. I do not know who is credited for starting the first CSA farm, but they were brilliant in addressing the true needs of the farmers.

One of my biggest pet peeves (besides people talking on their cell phone in restaurants) is when people criticize something then offer no solutions to the problem. So I will not throw stones at the markets without my 2 pesos on how to fix them.

First off, we need to close over half of the markets that exist right now in the ABQ area. I think we have 12 or something absurd. Folks, we do not have the support in our community yet for 12 farmers markets. I mean there are 4 just in downtown ABQ alone. There needs to be one market downtown. These markets are not bringing more people to the markets, they only dilute sales for growers.

Second, I would not hire any bands or entertainers to come to the market. Why can’t the food be the entertainment? Why can’t the sights and smells and flavors of our local farms be the attraction? The entertainers are just distractions from what the purpose of the market should be, the food. Markets should not feel like they have to “lure” you to the market, you should want to be there.

I believe that you need a pavilion or a cool space that is the farmers’ market and nothing else. A place with easy parking, easy access, and protects the growers and customers from the elements. The Ferry Building in San Francisco and Pikes in Seattle are the two best examples but I think they could be done on a smaller scale here.

To me, here is the ultimate goal for a market: give the consumer a genuine and authentic shopping experience while giving the local farmers/ranchers a viable option to sell their food and interact with the community. And by viable I mean financially viable. We had to stop going to the markets last year because we could not even make minimum wage for our effort to be there.

So until things change, I don’t see us having much of a presence at the markets. But you know where to find us, we will be in the fields and bringing the CSA to you. Thanks for all of your support and keeping us going.

Farmer Monte