It’s very possible that you’ve enjoyed produce grown at Cerro Vista Farm (CVF) and you already know farmer Daniel Carmona. You may have met him and these vibrant vegetables at his farm, or the Questa Farmers Market, or the Sangre de Cristo Valley Market. If you’ve been a longtime CVF customer, you may have received them in a weekly CSA (community supported agriculture) Share.
Work-trade is how I met Daniel Carmona, in 2015. It was a pivotal experience for me that has remained through the years: the fresh food and all the folks I’ve met there.
In 2024 Daniel and I started the nonprofit Cultivo, intending to connect younger generations to farming. Cultivo will enter its second season this year, with a mission to grow food security, cultural continuity, and economic vitality in northern Taos County. It is challenging for a small farm to succeed today, especially in northern New Mexico, given the difficult climate and isolation. Cultivo grew out of rethinking an old paradigm. We created a nonprofit program to focus on passing local farming knowledge to the next generation, while creating agricultural jobs for youth and mentors in our community.
Through Cultivo, youth are partnering with CVF, the only vegetable farm in northern Taos County. Our produce can go directly into the community, especially through the local Questa grocery. The Sangre de Cristo Valley Market owner, Dominick Apodaca, is on board, saying, “I’ll sell anything you can grow,” when I stopped by with a wholesale offerings list. Apodaca’s enthusiastic support for local farm produce is motivating, and this is also the kind of action that builds long-term food security.
In 2024 Cultivo raised over $13,000 in vegetable sales, which meant CVF remained a vital place for local food with young people involved at every step. The young growers learned from Daniel Carmona, who offered careful instructions with each task; planting, harvesting, washing, packing, storing and delivering. All summer, paid youth interns and mentors grew cucumbers, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, basil, beets, broccoli, zucchini, squash, peppers, carrots, cabbage and much more. Some of those vegetables won blue ribbons at the Taos County Fair.
Our produce made it into households across northern Taos County, an area designated as a “food desert.” With your support, we can change the designation of our region into a community that is food secure, or, as we like to say, a “food oasis.”
Eating food you produce is revolutionary, and if you don’t have a place to grow food, but you would like to, join us. We’re helping to grow in community garden spaces at Questa Farmers Market and the nearby Casas de Culturas.
Last April we met with Clara Adams’ Future Farmers of America class at Questa Junior and Senior High. Several students came to Cerro Vista Farm as part of their Supervised Agricultural Experience hours. The Quintana family: Fred, Lena, Esperanza and Elias, have farmed at Cerro Vista for years.
Volunteers included Lorie and Andy Jaramillo, Dava and Carl McGahee, JV Fuqua, Rachel Jensen, Genna Hackley, Joseph Lightman, and Mark Brozio. Daniel Hutchison, Localogy’s executive director, was a volunteer and provided administrative and grantwriting support. Hutchison is also a wheat farmer in Costilla and operates a mill in Questa.
Cultivo youth interns included: Dominik Anaya-Rael, Odinn Mikhaelsson, Amber Coté, Jacqueline Lara, Eliot Moody, Will Place, Joel Santistevan, Trey Cloud, Nick Lopez, Tulsi Shaw, and Kayd Stroh. Mentors Heather Armstrong, Mikhael Oskarsson, and Justin Powers worked with youth interns in all farm tasks.
Our internships give young people, ages 14-19, the opportunity to:
• Connect to local food producers and learn about agriculture
• Gain insight into small farm business operations
• Practice organic farming
• Work with the support of mentors and farm educators
• Work in teams to plant, weed, harvest, wash and pack produce for retail and wholesale clients
• Sell produce at Questa Farmers Market and a Tuesday Farm Stand
• Create friendships, connect to land, and grow food
If this sounds good to you, go to the “work” tab on our website, take a quick survey, and we’ll send you an application. If you’ve already been an intern, email us for an application, cultivoprogram@gmail.com.
We are grateful for grant funding in this initial phase. We have received funding from: Chevron Grants For Good through the Taos Community Foundation, Rural Roots funding through the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico, the LOR Foundation, the Seay Foundation, the Questa Economic Development Fund, and Kit Carson Electric Cooperative.
“Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), one type of direct marketing, consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or in spirit, the community’s farm; with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production,” quoted from the USDA National Agricultural Library. We are offering a CSA and plan to sell 25 summer shares and 25 fall shares, bringing in community support in the spring, ahead of the actual vegetable sales.
Purchase a share at our website, or contact us; this option is available now through April 15. The summer share provides 17 weeks of fresh produce ready every Tuesday from June 3 to Sept 23. The fall share is a 40 pound box of produce stocked with carrots, beets, garlic, cabbage, and squash.
Currently Farmer Daniel and his business partner Kestrel Andrus are selling seedlings and starts. Their business, Sunshine Seedlings, is taking pre-orders right now through their website, cerrovistafarm.com and you’ll pick up those baby plants from the farm in May.
Thanks to people from Questa, Cerro, Costilla, Amalia, Lama, Sunshine, Red River, San Cristobal and beyond who see farming and education as vital to our home, and our future. We appreciate your encouragement to grow food for our communities.
As a nonprofit program under Localogy, we can accept donations. You will find a secure link on our website, cultivoproject.org. Consider becoming a sustaining, monthly donor. There are a lot of complex problems in the world today, but supporting local food is a real solution.
We uphold a vision of economic change that focuses on strengthening local lives, an economy that is circular and local. An economy that is regenerative. One that invests in developing us (our human capital and capacities), promotes our well-being, and supports the conditions for community life to flourish into the future.
Thank you for sharing this vision.
Contact
cutlivoprogram@gmail.com
Instagram@cultivo_keepitgrowing
(575) 224-2101,
text or leave a message
CultivoProject.org
Office at Yoga Sala
2331 Hwy 522, Questa
A program of Localogy 501(c)(3) Questa, NM
