Corrales Farm Hub Central to Indigenous Food System

Published November 30th, 2023 at 9:00 am, Last Updated November 30th, 2023 at 9:52 pm

This fall, as you drive through Corrales and see the many farms harvesting the last of the fall crop, you might easily pass by a small plot of land just past San Ysidro church that is doing big things.

Not only is this farmland growing crops, but they are growing minds and spirits too! The Indigenous Farm Hub is a working farm whose goal it is to create healthy and sustainable Indigenous food systems. What does that mean? Well, it is a place where community members, families, and farmers collaboratively create a network of Indigenous farming that strengthens natural food systems, builds prosperity and revitalizes the ties language and culture has to the land.

The organization results from years of discussion and work in the education world by founders Kara Bobroff and Alan Brauer. Alan grew up on a farm in Maryland and transplanted to New Mexico as a dairy farmer nearly 20yrs ago.

“We wanted to set up a model where it was academically rigorous and also culturally relevant for students,” he said. “And they also were always interested in connecting land-based learning agriculture to their school through a community development kind of model. But boy, trying to do the academic and culturally responsive components of schooling takes up all your time. And so I kind of earmarked this with Kara, like one day we’re going to start this organization; one day we’re going to do some farming.”

That one day came during the midst of the COVID epidemic.

“We got the lockdown notice. March 13th, Kara asked me the next day if I could farm this third of an acre near her house.

“And I looked at it and I was like, yep, we can sure do that. And so we worked with NACA to provide families. We didn’t know how long the lockdown was going to be. Was it going to be a year? Was it going to be a week?”

That initial year was all about helping NACA (Native American Community Academy) families with food scarcity issues as a result of the lockdown. For the next 22 weeks, they fed 25 families on that third of an acre. As the lockdown went on, it became evident the need to help communities reconnect to their ability to grow their own food sustainably. During Zoom meetings galore, Alan and a small team began to try and figure out ways to support Indigenous communities around the metro area.

“We fed over a hundred families,” explained Rebecca Grashuis, the farms; education coordinator. “The students came out in the springtime and helped plant. It’s been great during the season. Usually, over the summer, we’ll have a couple of field trips, but during the school year, especially through NACA we get a whole grade level at a time. They come out twice per season. So for the fall, they come out twice, and then in the spring they’ll come out again.”

The farm hosts schools from around Albuquerque as well as tribal schools in Cochiti and other Pueblos.

Currently, they feed nearly 200 families, delivering on average about 10 items per week, normally things you would purchase at the grocer.

“Green beans and pinto beans, Anasazi beans, all kinds of different squash, both summer and hard squash, and then probably eight different varieties of greens and carrots and peas early on. And so beets, so you name it, anything that we can grow, we try to grow it here,” says Rebecca.

Merlin Toya-Lucero is one of the indigenous farmers that the Hub has hired to help with the various farming tasks. He helps represent that bridge to traditional farming techniques he learned growing up in the Pueblos.

“Once upon a time, we all used to plant,” he said. “Our great grandfathers and past, this is what they did and how they survived and maintained their life. So I feel it is important, and it’s nice to see them out here.

“Some of ’em are interested, they like being out here. Being outside, getting ’em away from the classroom setting, teaching them little words or how to say different plants in our native language. I guess just teaching them other ways; this is how we grow, we harvest. This is what you can, we use this for different purposes back home for other traditional practices and stuff like that. So I feel it’s kind of all intertwined, the old and young a little bit somewhere.”

The HUB just received two large grants, one from an organization called the Native American Agriculture Fund, $200,000 grant to continue our work around farmer training. They were one of our first partners of the HUB and continue to invest in the work their doing. That also comes with the opportunity to get new equipment as well. Getting a no-till grain drill, which means instead of having to till up the ground all the time, you can till using a no-till planter to get grasses established. This will not only help them but can possibly be rented to help other farmers.

Next is a USDA grant through urban agriculture. Corrales is considered urban and their grant of $350,000 is going to build two greenhouses. A great opportunity to get young people excited about agriculture in different ways. Expanding old ways of farming, with new technologies. Alan sounded so excited when talking about this, “and so next year at this time, we’re going to have two large greenhouses here filled with hydroponic systems that we’re going to be growing year round and hopefully creating even more year-round access to healthy foods!”