Commerce News: Border Farmers Wanted

Cultivating new farmers and building up a locally-focused agricultural infrastructure are key goals...

(LAS CRUCES, N.M.) - Well-established in north-central New Mexico, local growers' markets are now expanding in the southern New Mexico borderland.

Recently, representatives of four regional farmers' markets banded together to form the Southern New Mexico Farmers Marketing Group (SNFMG). The aims of the association include establishing greater farmer/consumer linkages, and encouraging more people to grow food.

"The main idea behind the Southern New Mexico Farmers Marketing Group is to provide a support network and resources," says Mo Valko of the Las Cruces Sunday Growers Market. Besides Valko's outfit, markets from Sunland Park, Chaparral and downtown Las Cruces are represented in the SNMFMG.

To boost market popularity, the SNMFMG is considering a media and outreach campaign in 2011. Finding enough growers to supply a hungry public is "one of the biggest challenges of my market," Valko says. Now three years old, the Las Cruces Sunday market typically includes anywhere from 8 to 13 busy sellers, she adds.

"Our vendors are usually selling out of produce or close to selling out," Valko reports. The Las Cruces Sunday Growers Market takes place from mid-April to mid-November in the parking lot of the Mountain View Cooperative Market. "We basically follow the cycle of local growers here," adds Valko, who also serves as outreach coordinator for the coop.

Cultivating new farmers and building up a locally-focused agricultural infrastructure are key goals also endorsed by Robert Ardovino, manager of the Sunland Park Farmers Market and a participant in the SNMFMG. "We need everyone from backyard growers to five-acre plot growers," Ardovino urges. "That's one thing we need more of-local farming." Located on the US-Mexico border outside Ardovino's Desert Crossing restaurant, the Sunland Park market has proven a hit, according to Ardovino.

"It's bigger than it's ever been," says the border restaurateur. "We're well on our way to keeping the local movement alive down here." Ardovino asserts that demand for locally-grown produce far outstrips the existing supply.

Last month, 1,500 people registered a "phenomenal" attendance at the market's annual holiday season event, he says, but shoppers had to content themselves with arts and crafts and locally-made, value-added food products because no growers with fresh produce were to be found. Shortages of greenhouses, investment capital and above all, willing growers, limit the potential of community agriculture in southern New Mexico, Ardovino contends.

Together with possible partners like the new La Semilla Food Center, the SNMFMG can play a positive role in constructing what is known as a local foodshed, Valko argues. In addition to providing an economic incentive for the blossoming of a new border farmers' corps, a Greater Mesilla Valley foodshed offering a variety of local products could help fill the food access gap for low-income communities, she adds.

According to Valko, a ready example is in the small town of Anthony at the southern end of Dona Ana County. Despite living smack dab in the middle of one of the Southwest's prime farming zones, residents of Anthony do not have easy access to fresh food, whether in supermarkets or coops. Ironically, most of the farm commodities produced in the area- onions, pecans, chile and dairy products- head to out-of-state destinations. "You find people next door who can´t find an onion," Valko says.

Getting local farmworkers displaced by international trade and mechanization involved in a new community food system is also of interest to Valko. "That's a group I'd love to get into contact with and be able to encourage them to sell at farmers' markets," she says.

Piece-by-piece, the foundations of a new community food system are coming together, Ardovino and Valko both report. For instance, a medium-sized farmer with a plan to produce diverse crops specifically for local consumption just set down roots up the road from Sunland Park, according to Ardovino. Ending the saga of the disappearing small farmer is "a story we need to change," he maintains.

For Valko, supporting growers' markets is a healthy endeavor for consumers who obtain fresh and nutritious food, and an added boost to communities that get to see dollars floating around in local hands instead of flying off to outside corporate coffers somewhere else. "You're supporting your local economy," Valko insists.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico