NMCEWL 2021 Summit NMCEWL

Eugene Pickett knows farm disaster first hand—his farm and house in Belen, NM, along with those of his neighbors, were flooded out several years back, and he tried to access resources to help rebuild—which wasn’t easy. Now he serves as an advocate for several organizations at the state and national level, where he works with coalitions to address deep-seated historical discrimination and to preserve traditional, soil-friendly agricultural practices. 

Bees date back over 10,000 years on the American continent and are vital to the health of almost every bite we eat, but today they face threats from industrialization and habitat fragmentation. Melanie Kirby is a decades-long beekeeper, a scientist, a member of Tortugas Pueblo, and extension educator for the land-grant program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her diverse background gives a perspective on bees and pollinators that brings together Western and indigenous perspectives, and that can help everyone from farmers to urban gardeners play a role in the revitalization of this keystone species. 

The suicide rate among farmers is alarmingly high—and yet there is widespread reluctance to talk about topics like depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. A new program called AgWell is helping farmers, ranchers, agriculture workers, and their families, get the help they need—and to learn how to help others in their community. We talk to Clinton Wilson, program director of AgWell, and Dan Waldvogle of Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, which has been instrumental in founding the program. 

Though we can’t control how much moisture the land gets in any year, we can made good decisions about how to respond to a variety of scenarios—and this helps farmers and ranchers to survive both practically and emotionally. We talk to Retta Breugger, Regional Specialist in Rangeland Management at Colorado State University Extension, and Harrison Topp, Membership Director for the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and the operator of Topp Fruits in Paonia, Colorado. RMFU helps farmers, ranchers, and many others involved in agriculture to strategize for drought, and to find technical and financial assistance to carry out their plans. 

Isabelle Jenniches co-founder of the New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group, and her mission for many years has been to create networks of organizations and individuals working together to advance soil health—and thereby improve the health of ecosystems, food, people, and climate. She brings a vision of healthy rangelands and croplands across the state, and land management drawing from both traditional and innovative practices. 

Currently New Mexico imports 98% of the food we eat, and exports 95% of the food we grow. Kendal Chavez is the Food and Hunger Coordinator in the office of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, and her mission is to address food insecurity while protecting New Mexico’s agricultural resources, like water and soil—and keeping food in state.