You have got to love the journey of the green chile. From sunbathing in the fields, to the fiery inferno of the roaster.
Now it is time for you to enjoy them. Fall Chile Roast tomorrow, 9/24, from 9-Noon at our warehouse, 3435 Stanford Dr NE
What’s In the Harvest Box Next Week?
Happy first day of fall. What an incredible time for all of us to enjoy here in the Southwest. And it ends up being a time for change for our food landscape as well. Let me lay this out a bit for you.
The “Buy Local” food craze that is now over a decade old, has done so much to shed light on the work of small farmers and producers everywhere. The Southwest is no exception. We have seen huge leaps in demand as well as education over the past 13 years. Our farm and many others are so fortunate to be riding this wave of attention that the local food movement receives.
But there is one drawback that this energy has brought on and that is a lack of realism. I wish more than anyone that we all could eat within 100 miles of our front door. For us landlocked folks though, this is just not in the cards. Arizona gets too hot in the summer and New Mexico gets too cold in the winter, and Colorado has such a small growing window that if you blink, you might just miss it.
So for me, it was in realizing our limitations when I saw our potential. We had to shed the skin of trying to be everything to everyone. We had to concede the fact that someone bakes better bread than our farm, grows better fruit than we can, and milks a happier cow than I would ever be able to do. Basically, there was this very liberating moment that we experienced when we began the mantra “Do what you do well.” I think I even remember my mom saying that when I was coloring as a little kiddo. She probably saw I was not going to be an artist.
I mean we do not go to our accountant’s office for an oil change, dry cleaning, and a bowl of warm soup. They crunch the numbers and count the beans. No one expects more from them. But for some reason, the local food movement demands more from producers. And honestly it is not the direction we should be pushing our growers. We need to assess who is good at what, partner up, and stop trying to wear 1,000 hats during the day.
So for the past 7 years we have been building these partnerships; which allows our growers to spend more time in the fields and less time searching for a market. Changing our perspective on what the local food movement should be (can be) has created a paradigm shift for not only our farm and our partners, but also for you our members. As we encourage a grower to specialize, on say tree crops, they get really darn good at growing fruit. And so all of us get to savor these specialty crops and the grower does not get spread too thin. They can focus on what they do well.
So with all of that said, fall is a time for geographic transition for our food production. The greens that have been growing in NM, will soon be harvested from the mild winter fields in central AZ. Stone fruits will make way for the abundance of Arizona citrus. Roots that have been watered by the Rio Grande will be irrigated by the Salt.
These are the cycles life, the cycles of the seasons, and the cycles of our food. We are so fortunate to have such a strong group of committed farmers, ranchers and producers on our team who understand these limitations that Mother Nature gives us. Additionally all have a deep rooted desire to keep chemicals out of our fields/food and to be champions of social justice and living wages for all Ag producers. By cutting out the middleman (grocery stores), we are able to bring all of this quality food to you at a better value than any sterile and boring store could ever hope to do.
Thank you so much for your support this summer, and Cheers to a beautiful and abundant fall full of flavors, Farmer Monte