A group of local producers, big and small, met over lunch at the Cortez Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, March 13 at noon to identify the many challenges they face and to find solutions to overcome those challenges.
The Montezuma Leadership Network hosted the event – and brought in sandwiches, veggies and even desserts for its attendees – because they’re hoping to position themselves as a “civic hub” for people to connect with resources in the community, said Mary Jo Standard, the Network’s community involvement coordinator.
Ultimately, the goal of the workshop was for producers to leave with new, useful tools in their belt to overcome whatever challenges they might be facing on their farm.
Because, as they agreed, “Ag is hard.”
The discussion took a top-down approach, meaning they began by defining a vision and ended with identifying available resources to realize that vision.
Standard mediated the conversation, keeping notes on a whiteboard at the front of the room as producers bounced ideas off one another, brainstorming.
She encouraged them to imagine a “big, beautiful, idealistic vision” of what local agriculture could be, because “if you don’t have a ‘why,’ if you don’t have a vision, you have nothing you’re working towards,” said Standard.
Producers in the room imagined community-based labor trade and equitable food access, so people who need healthy food can “get it, afford it and grow it.”
They also mentioned the need to maintain open spaces, keeping water here and farming sustainably “instead of massive monocropping.”
Kate Rowan, a co-founder of Four Corners Women in Agriculture, brought up gender equality and educational opportunities, which is a focus of her organization.
Some of that equality comes with a willingness to change, which happens when things are normalized and also taught, said Standard.
Education also might disband fears of large-scale production, a point that a producer with well over 1,000 productive acres made.
“I don’t think we’ve plowed in 10 years,” she said.
Someone who raises beef cattle underscored how “it’s more expensive to buy from a farmer or rancher, but it’s better.”
She gave an example of buying a $4 shirt at Walmart versus wearing a shirt your mom sewed at home that cost her $20 to make.
“It might be cheaper at Walmart, but there’s an environmental cost,” she said.
“And there’s the aging population,” another producer chimed in. “What can be learned from them, and how can we support them?”
Mentorship programs, they suggested, are a good way to both capture that knowledge while fulfilling a much-needed educational piece.
“You guys have created this beautiful, sustainable vision, where local food feeds the community,” said Standard.
“Conditions” came next, which is “a state that must be met for that vision to be achieved,” said Standard.
Education was a highlight, as was “patience, time and grace because change won’t happen overnight.”
When someone mentioned water and the lack of it, Standard challenged the group to try not to think from a place of scarcity “because when we come together, we do have abundance. We just need to come together.”
Someone suggested permaculture as a way to pivot in dry conditions. They explained it as “is using the land the way it ought to be used.”
Indeed, permaculture “is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature,” said Bill Mollison, an Australian researcher, who coined the term back in 1978 with David Holmgren.
As one producer put it, “We need to change our thinking about water.”
“It’s not a temporary drought we’re in, it’s the new norm,” he said. “It makes me want to do things differently based on the presumption there’s less water that will fall from the sky.”
Finally, there’s the “action” piece.
The producers agreed that knowledgeable people should come forward and help others, especially newcomers who buy land and don’t know what to do with it.
Finding qualified labor is hard, plus it’s expensive, which is where the labor trade comes in.
In regards to drought, increasing the use of permaculture is important, and so is trying to change the “use it or lose it attitude” to mitigate water waste.
The hour-and-a-half window quickly came to a close that afternoon, and the group agreed to meet again in the future, on another Thursday afternoon over lunch, to continue the conversation.
