Slow Food farm tour coming up fast
Sep. 9—details
Slow Food Santa Fe annual farm tour
1, 2, & 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14
Khalsa Family Farms, Sombrillo; The Vagabond Farmers, La Puebla; Santa Cruz Farm and Greenhouses, Española
Tickets $25
Ask the average person on the street in Santa Fe when they last visited Sombrillo or La Puebla, both inNew Mexico, and you might get a blank stare.
The census-designated places of fewer than 2,000 combined residents are on the right as one drives north on U.S. 285 just south of Española, passing the Dreamcatcher 10 cinemas. They feel a world away from Santa Fe's relative bustle, but as participants in the Slow Food Santa Fe annual farm tour will learn, they're only about a 30-minute drive from the Santa Fe Plaza.
The goal of the self-guided driving tour on Wednesday, Sept. 14, is to show participants where food at the Santa Fe Farmers Market comes from; they also can buy goods on-site. The stops are Khalsa Family Farms in Sombrillo, The Vagabond Farmers in La Puebla, and Santa Cruz Farm and Greenhouses in Española, all within a few miles of one another. The cost is $25, and farm tours at each of the stops are offered at 1, 2, and 3 p.m.
Slow Food Santa Fe is a chapter of a worldwide movement aimed in part at countering fast food's effects on local eating habits and culture. Its first farm tour was in 2019, to Dixon, a census-designated place of fewer than 500 residents in Rio Arriba County, nearly 50 miles north of Santa Fe.
"We have a number of people who come to the tours on a regular basis," says Santa Fe Slow Food board member Lissa Johnson. "So they get to know different areas where there's farming. ... There's so many farming areas here in Northern New Mexico. This year, we wanted to focus on the Española Valley, because there are a lot of farmers there."
Finding farms interested in participating hasn't been a challenge, Johnson says. Farms are selected based on factors such as parking availability and the ability to provide tours. They aren't chosen based on an application process but rather are approached about being involved.
The first three farms approached for this year's tour all said yes.
"[The tour] brings people to their farms," Johnson says. "And what we find is, when [participants] can see what it takes to grow food, [they] really start to appreciate it."
Climate change brings its own set of questions for farmers. Among them: "Now every season here in New Mexico is different from the one before, and how do you plan for that?" Johnson says.
The tours are an opportunity for farmers to interact with customers away from the commotion of the farmers market, she says, adding that the benefits aren't just financial. "It's really a benefit to them to educate eaters about why they grow food the way they do," as well as how they protect organic foods from pests, Johnson says. "They like that people are interested and have questions."
Vagabond Farmers co-proprietor Osiris Nasnan says the biggest surprise awaiting tour participants likely is the diversity of available vegetables and flowers not far north of Santa Fe.
As for the farm's mid-September offerings, barring an early frost, "tomatoes and cucumbers will be around, with fall crops like carrots and really tender greens making an appearance," he says.
Vagabond started three years ago, while Santa Cruz Farm and Greenhouses has been in Don Bustos' family for more than 400 years, says Nina Rosenberg, Santa Fe Slow Food board member.
"If people don't get out of the city of Santa Fe, they might not realize just how many small farms are so close by," she says. "New Mexico has a lot more small farms than a lot of other places [do]."
