Grow, process food locally

Harmony and sustainability: An essay on green futures

Paula Garcia | For The New Mexican

4/25/2008 - 4/20/08

For many who were raised in Northern New Mexico, the springtime was shaped by the urgency of the growing season. Acequias had to be cleaned, soil had to be tilled, and seeds had to be planted by a certain saint's day. These ancient cultural practices still permeate the communities of the region during the months of April and May, making it a natural time to reflect on our relationship with our tierra madre. Since the 1970s, spring has also been a time to celebrate Earth Day, an expression of the mainstream environmental movement.

I believe there are substantive differences in the way that traditional communities and environmental groups relate to the landscape. For many with generational connections here, a relationship to the Earth is expressed as a profound connection to place. The names of ancestors, their lives and features of the land are articulated through oral histories. The powerful presence of beautiful mountains, the streams they nurture and the valleys we inhabit and cultivate inspire connection to place for newcomers as well. However, the generational element in traditional communities is distinct.

Another difference is a feeling of dispossession and displacement that stems from historical experience. Farming and ranching livelihoods were seriously disrupted with fragmentation of the landscape following the U.S. conquest. Rural villages have endured generations of outmigration as people have sought better jobs outside their historic communities. This historical context is crucial to understanding, for example, why well-intentioned efforts to protect "wilderness" rub against the historic rights and uses of the traditional land-based people of the region or why gentrification of historic communities sometimes fosters resentment.

Any discussion about the "environment" in Northern New Mexico has to begin with reaching a common understanding of our history and the way in which traditional communities relate to the land and water. If we could truly reach common ground on the historical understanding, there is great potential for how we might strategize for the future.

Assuming we could meet such a threshold, I have some thoughts about where we might start. I believe some of our most pressing concerns are that Northern New Mexico, along with the rest of the state, suffers from one of the highest rates of food insecurity and highest disparities between the rich and the poor in the nation. Despite the cultural and ecological richness of the region, these numbers raise a red flag as indicators of social and economic justice and ecological sustainability.

First, we should restore our ability to grow and process more of our food locally, a concept often referred to as food sovereignty. Although we import most of the food we eat, historically we once were more self-sufficient, and we have the potential to do so again. For example, in a recent study by the New Mexico Acequia Association with the support of the Kellogg Foundation, we estimated that, in a five-county area of Northern New Mexico, local ranchers are raising enough livestock to feed their respective communities but lack the infrastructure to process the food and distribute it to our tables.

In making a shift toward processing local beef, we could support the income of thousands of ranchers, improve the quality of the food we eat and reduce the number of miles our food travels. We could do the same for all of our crops with an emphasis on native foods that are spiritually and culturally significant to our communities.

To reach this amazing potential, we need to take immediate steps toward protecting the historic grazing rights, water rights, native seeds and farmland that are the basis for our agricultural productive capacity. It would also require serious investment in our farms and ranches as well as the infrastructure needed to process our food. Widespread support will be needed to make these structural changes to our local food systems. We need to reach economies of scale that will achieve the dual objectives of supporting our farmers and ranchers while also making the food produced affordable for all of our families.

In addition to rebuilding our local food systems, New Mexico could lead the way toward a new energy economy. The public funding that is allocated to the national laboratories would be better invested transitioning to renewable energy such as wind, solar and biomass, and developing alternatives to fossil fuels, the rising costs of which will impose disproportionate hardship on poor families. Under certain conditions, these new technologies could create many new "green collar" jobs and keep more of our energy dollar in the region. Such a model for community development could help address economic inequities such as the wide disparity between the median incomes of Los Alamos and Rio Arriba counties and eliminate the possibility of radioactive contamination, which already has precedent in Northern New Mexico.

I envision a future for Northern New Mexico where we create just livelihoods for workers, farmers and ranchers that also provide for the basic needs of families for healthy food and clean, affordable energy. In working toward that future, we would contribute to a global movement to reduce our dependence on transnational corporations for our food and energy. As a person dedicated to working the land and to grassroots organizing, I remain hopeful about our potential.

Paula Garcia is executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association.