N EWS & V IEWS F RO M THE S USTAI N Abl E S OUTHWEST GROWING LOCAL FOOD BUSINESSES FUZE.SW NATIVE AMERICAN FOOD AND FOLKLORE FESTIVAL THANKSGIVING FOR THE HARVEST RENEWAblE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT November 2014 NORTHERN NEW MEXICO’S LARGEST CIRCULATION NEWSPAPER Vol. 6 No. 11 2 Green Fire Times • November 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com COMING UP IN THE DECEMBER ISSUE: GREEN GIFTING: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX! Suggestions for Green Holiday Gifts and Entertaining • Gifts for the home, for work, for the outdoor enthusiast • Gifts for sustainable living and health improvement • Gifts that are meaningful, useful, durable and/or beautiful • Homemade food gifts from local produce • Eco-friendly gifts the recipient can actually use • Gift certificates, memberships • Support local businesses and eco-conscious companies. • Give more “experiences” and less “stuff.” • Give donations on behalf of family and friends. If you have a green Editorial and ad product, service or materials deadline: VOTE • Nov. 4 idea you’d like to November 15, 2014. showcase as a “green Presented in association gift” in the December with the New Mexico GFT, please send in- Green Chamber of formation and pho- Commerce. tos to: [email protected] or consider advertising in this special edition. www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • November 2014 3 4 Green Fire Times • November 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com Vol. 6, No. 11 • November 2014 Issue No. 67 PUBLISHER Green Fire Publishing, LLC Skip Whitson NEWS & VIEWS FROM THE SUSTAINAblE SOUTHWEST ASSoCIAte PubLISher barbara e. brown Winner of the Sustainable Santa Fe Award for Outstanding Educational Project edItor-IN-ChIeF Seth roffman CONTENTS Art dIreCtor DEL ARE LLANO: LOCAL FOOD, THEN AND NOW. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7 Anna C. hansen, dakini design VIEWS FROM THE FIELD: GROWN ON THIS GROUND . .. .. .. .. 7 CoPy edItorS 2014 LOCAL FOOD FESTIvaL AND FIELD DAY. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 10 Stephen Klinger Susan Clair COALITION POKES HOLES IN NEW MEXICO CHILE CERTIFICatION .. .. .. .. 11 WebmASter: Karen Shepherd THE LOCAL VOICE: GROWING LOCAL FOOD BUSINESSES BY LEapS AND POUNDS . .. 12 CoNtrIbutING WrIterS TAOS COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORatION WEEK . .. .. 15 malín Alegría, Juan estévan Arellano, Alejandro López, maceo Carrillo martinet, RadITIONAL atIVE MERICAN ARMERS SSOCIatION Vicki Pozzebon, Seth roffman, T N A F A .. .. .. .. .. .. 18 Kathy Sanchez, Ashley Zappe GIVING LOVE AND THANKS IN TIMES OF CONTRadICTIONS . .. .. .. 19 CoNtrIbutING OOD OLKLORE ESTIvaL PhotoGrAPherS FUZE.SW 2014 F & F F . .. .. .. .. 20 robert boherz, Anna C. hansen, Alejandro López, Seth roffman, melanie West A SMALL SAMPLE OF WHO WE ARE . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 23 PubLISher’S ASSIStANtS ON THE LAND: TOGETHER WITH THE EARTH - A NEW FILM DOCUMENtaRY . .. .. 24 Karen h. Strawn Cynthia trujillo, Azlan White, Cisco Whitson-brown SMALL AGRICULTURAL LANDS CONSERvatION INITIatIVE .. .. .. .. .. .. 25 oFFICe ASSIStANtS BOOK PROFILE: GRASS, SOIL, HOPE: A JOURNEY THROUGH CARBON COUNTRY. 25 Camille Franchette, Claire Ayraud RENEWabLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT ON StatE TRUST LAND . .. .. .. 27 AdVertISING SALeS Skip Whitson 505.471.5177 PLANNING SANta FE’S FOOD FUTURE . .. .. .. .. .. 31 [email protected] SUStaINabLE SANta FE UpdatE: SANta FE’S COMMUNITY SCORECARD. .. .. .. 33 Anna C. hansen 505.982.0155 [email protected] NEWSBITES . .. .. .. .. .. .. ..10, 11, 12, 13, 25, 30, 37 robyn montoya 505.692.4477 Hat S OING N [email protected] W ’ G O . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 38 dIStrIbutIoN barbara brown, Susan Clair, Co-op dist. Services, Nick García, Andy otterstrom (Creative Couriers), tony rapatz, Wuilmer rivera, Andrew tafoya, Cynthia trujillo, Skip Whitson, John Woodie CIrCuLAtIoN: 27,000 copies Printed locally with 100% soy ink on 100% recycled, chlorine-free paper GreeN FIre tImeS c/o the Sun Companies P.o. box 5588, SF, Nm 87502-5588 505.471.5177 • [email protected] © 2014 Green Fire Publishing, LLC Green Fire Times provides useful information for community members, business people, students and visitors—anyone interested in discovering the wealth of opportunities and resources in the Southwest. In support of a more sustainable planet, topics covered range from green businesses, jobs, products, services, entrepreneurship, investing, design, building and energy—to native perspectives on history, arts & ansen culture, ecotourism, education, sustainable agriculture, h regional cuisine, water issues and the healing arts. To our publisher, a more sustainable planet also means maximizing environmental as well as personal health by minimizing consumption of meat and alcohol. © Anna C. Green Fire Times is widely distributed throughout Fresh-cut alfalfa on a small farm in Abiquiú, New mexico north-central New Mexico. Feedback, announcements, event listings, advertising and article submissions to be COVER: Blue Corn and Cucumber with Marigolds • PHOTO © ALEJANDro LÓPEZ considered for publication are welcome. Green Fire Times is not to be confused with the Green Fire Report, an in-house quarterly publication of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. The NMELC can be accessed online at: www.nmelc.org www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • November 2014 5 6 Green Fire Times • November 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com del are llano / FROM THE ARID LAND LO CAL FOOD, THEN AND NOW In the Hispano communities, local food has been a way of life. JUAN ESTÉvaN AreLLANO oday, local food is a rave. Everywhere peaches and an assortment of vegetables dried peas, beans—pinto and bolita— you go, everyone is promoting local made their way from the Española Valley cabbage, potatoes, chicos and meat, food.T There are local food festivals all to those places that didn’t grow the crops from goats to sheep to venison. over, from Albuquerque to Santa Fe to grown at lower altitudes. Those from the At that time, most of the goods were Taos and even in small towns throughout Embudo Valley and Velarde usually went bartered or, as it was called in Spanish, the Río Arriba bioregion. Farmers who to Taos and other towns along the Río cambalache. Relatively little was bought produce for local farmers’ markets are in the stores, which were usually small given awards for being a “Local Hero.” Most everyone in and family-owned. Even into the How times have changed. Not too long northern New Mexico ’60s there were mercantile stores in ago, everything consumed was local food. Española and San Juan Pueblo (Ohkay To people in the Hispano communities, grew food and traded Owingeh). The mercantile stores in local food—mostly grown within the with neighbors for the Ranchos de Taos, Pecos, Las Vegas and family or hamlet—has been a way of life. Peñasco (still in existence) belonged to Local food often was delivered to the products they lacked. immigrants from Lebanon. doorsteps of the consumer. This started Grande all the way to the San Luís Valley Then, after the inundation of industrially with the Chile Line railroad in the 1880s in southern Colorado. Sometimes, those processed food, fast-food establishments that used to take chile from Embudo from Española, Hernández and Chamita and big-box supermarkets, the coin Station to Antonito, Colo. and beyond. would travel to Gallina, Tierra Amarilla, flipped. In the mid-90s, with the Growing up in the Embudo Valley, first Chama and surrounding communities. introduction of GMOs (genetically in Cañoncito and later in La Junta, all we Those from Chimayó would go to modified organisms), people started to ate was local because that’s all we could Truchas, Peñasco and the Mora Valley become more conscious of what they afford. Even into the 1960s and ’70s, with their produce. On their way back, ate. But the nomenclature changed pickup trucks loaded with chile, apples, they would bring calabazas, maduras, completely. Whereas local food had CoNtINued oN page 8 VIEWS FROM THE FIELD GROWN ON THIS GROUND ALEJANDro LÓPEZ s I write this, I am sipping a cup of warm atole, prepared as I was shown by my older brother, Joe, when I was but a child of 10 and needed to begin taking responsibilityA for my own hunger. The blue corn for this morning’s meal was lovingly grown and hand-processed by organic farmers, my friends Dora and Lorenzo, from the South Valley of Albuquerque. Preparing and consuming this hot cereal on a cool fall morning of contracting greenery and advancing parched ochre leaves and stalks satisfies not only my palette and my body’s need for energy, maintenance and repairs; it also thoroughly enlivens my senses, memory and consciousness with thoughts and sensations of the inevitable passage of time, the nature of relationships and, above all, of the unique texture and constitution of the living New Mexican earth, capable of © Alejandro López feeding us still. I say “still” because she once did and could do so again in the event, say, of California staggering in its recovery from drought or if we tire of the high prices and tasteless food brought in from elsewhere. The earth of New Mexico could actually feed us if we were to convert from the “religion” of petroleum, chemical fertilizers and GMOs to more homegrown and respectful ways of providing for our collective nutritional needs. offman (4) r Prior to the 1950s, most everyone in northern New Mexico grew food from field or farm and traded with neighbors for the products they lacked. This time of year saw © Seth CoNtINued oN page 8 www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • November 2014 7 LocaL FooD coNTINUED FroM PAGE 7 VIEWS FroM THE FIELD coNTINUED FroM PAGE 7 meant cheap prices, today it often to eat chewing a virtual tidal wave of individuals, families and communities means food for people who can afford it. gum. The mistake harvesting and processing food. They gathered, schucked, A bushel of local chile—20 lbs. or even I made was that butchered, pitted, dried, ground and canned huge amounts more—sold for $4 at most; today, it’s as I knew the seller, of food, oftentimes enough to feed families of 10 or 12 for high as $50.