Don Bustos, Santa Cruz Farm
president, Western SARE
(505) 514-1662
In the afternoon of the pre-conference workshop day, March 12, Don Bustos & Camille Trujillo of Santa Cruz Farm started out their talk with a round of introductions to get a sense of who was there and what their interests were. The results were interesting: people had come from all over the state, (including a couple of kids with their own agricultural ambitions) and ranged from students from the UAF Office of Sustainability, to farmers, to gardeners gone wild, to CES and other agency, business, and nonprofit representatives. People’s interests included farming, strong communities, sustainability, self reliance, food cooperatives, community gardening, soil & water conservation, economic development, biodiversity preservation and sharing, restorative agriculture, and more.
Bustos started out by describing how, when they first took off in New Mexico, their plane lost an engine, so they had to turn around and land. After the adrenaline settled down they decided they would go ahead and continue anyway, although they’d lost a day off their time in Alaska—but they really wanted to come north, and it was worth it. (And no more engine trouble!)
Santa Cruz Farm is at 5,800 foot elevation, with solar energy as the only power source. It’s near Esposito, with the farm in the same family for 32 generations. It is a vegan farm, meaning there are no animal inputs to the soil (no animal manures or meals as fertilizers), and it is about 80 miles from nearest farm using RoundUp-using farms or other GMO farms. It is an AFSC Certified Organic farm, certified through the New Mexico Dept. of Agriculture, USDA. It is also regularly inspected by the Sante Fe Farmers’ Market. These inspections are worth it, Bustos assured his audience, when it comes to getting funding later for projects, or for marketing your products. The farm works with the American Friends Service Committee, the Farmer-to-Farmer Training Program.
New Mexico and Water
To understand the way Bustos currently operates his farm, he explained that a bit of historical background about New Mexico was in order. Water is historically very important, and modern times are no exception. The acequia, or water conduits, are a network of community-operated water chutes that, Bustos said, were the first form of democracy in North America. The acequias were first established in the late 1600s, and predate the solidification of Western water law’s prioritization of water use (the “Doctrine of Prior Appropriation”). This means that instead of water being seen as an individually owned commodity, the community also has shared rights and responsibilities to manage, use, and protect the water. Commissionados act as mediators, with area farms having a “one farmer, one vote,” system.
Northern New Mexico has strong community and long tradition of protection of water. However, urban areas have political clout, and the commodification of water is becoming a strong force in water politics.
Santa Cruz Farm uses a water catchment pond for its winter crops (the acequia are closed off now during winter months, and the area is in drought); about 8 to 10 feet deep. There is also a well, but it has dried out (the water table has dropped 60-80 feet in the last 30 years or so); they redug it once.
The farm gets its seeds from various companies: Peaceful Valley, High Mowing, etc., and chooses what to grow based on cooperative marketing ideas for value added and high value crops, planning ahead by several years to get a good return. Don Bustos cultivates only about 3.5 acres of his farmland; he found out he could make more money that way, rather than farming 100 acres, as he used to, by a careful choice of crop and planning ahead for his marketing. More acreage, despite more crops, actually cost more: there was better profit on a smaller farm. The most profitable and least stressful was at the three-acre level they have now, he said, and staff included only one and a half-time plus a few seasonal workers. An interesting sidenote that Bustos offered: a row that is too long has a psychological effect: “if it’s 80-100 feet it’s okay, but 120 feet or longer makes me and the people working for me tired,” so he found he had more productive workers with shorter rows.
Some of Bustos’ income comes from tours: students: university students, rehabilitation/alternative sentencing, adults with disabilities, sustainable programs at various colleges, the school farm (Dragon Farm) with curricula integration with school districts. Not all, of course, are required to pay a fee (but appointments are important—a farmer’s got to get his work done!).
Bustos showed us a few slides of his early attempts to move from the traditional farming his father had showed him to season extension with homemade hoophouses using PVC pipe on rebar, but snow made them collapse. From there he progressed to a more ambitious solar panel/undersoil heating system (which he still uses for part of his cropping).
The farm is changing over from this system in the hoop houses to a Haygrove high tunnel system of a full acre under cultivation, using cover crops only in the summer (heat tolerant ones such as pinto beans, sunflowers), with rollup sides. Bustos uses cloth on wire hoops underneath the larger high tunnels for frosty nights.
