SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- The
Romeros and the Moons are bucking a national trend.
They're 40-something and younger, and making a living on their small-scale
farms at a time when American agriculture is headed toward larger corporate
farms with fewer producers, according to a recent U.S. Department of Labor
report.
In 2002, there were 1.9 million family or individually run farms, down more
than 20,000 farms from 1997, according to the National Agricultural
Statistics Service.
Family farms are finding relief in niche markets that involve horticulture,
organic farming and small-scale operations that market directly to
customers, the Labor Department report says.
Those niches, an understanding
of the traditional skills and new knowledge needed to run a successful
operation, and a deep love for life on the land are what drive the Romeros
and the Moons.
Matthew Romero enjoys the art and science of farming. Romero, 48, operates
three fields along the Rio Grande with help from his wife, Emily, 34, and
one full-time worker. They grow year-round and harvest more than 30 kinds of
produce, from chiles to Japanese eggplant. They are the largest producer
selling at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, and he's made a comfortable enough
living to buy a farm in Dixon.
Not bad for a nonfarmer who put down his chef's hat and started harvesting
fields barely six years ago.
"It has a lot to do with independence, about being your own boss,"
Matthew Romero said. "But you have to be very resourceful to do this
for a living."
Romero, who grew up in EspalInola, is the son of a woman who grew up on a
farm but hated farming. He tried it early on and failed. "I couldn't
even grow a garden," Romero said.
He made his living as a chef. But six years ago, he began caretaking 10
acres in Velarde for his wife's grandmother. "It was heaven," he
said.
Romero quit his chef's job, sold his house and started loading a Volkswagen
with produce to sell in Los Alamos. "If I made $75 in the whole day, I
was happy," he said.
A new dad by then, he leased an orchard and started hauling apples up to
Colorado, selling hand-picked, hand-polished apples for $20 a bushel, making
$10,000 in one fall.
Then an uncle offered him three acres of Alcalde land plus some farming
lessons. When he wasn't farming, Romero was reading about planting and
harvesting practices, drip irrigation and soil fertility. "My uncle has
seen me go from not knowing anything to one of the best farmers
around," he said.
At the farmers market, Romero put his experience as a high-end chef and food
manager to use. He trains his employees on safe food handling and prints
recipes to give visitors. He's identified unusual crops such as bok choy
that sell well to Los Alamos' Asian residents. "I've grown into niches
that other people haven't filled," he said.
Romero said making every minute count is a key to success. He has made his
watering system highly efficient with a combination of flood irrigation,
drip irrigation and sprinklers.
Romero said with the right plan, farmers can make a good living in
agriculture. "It is possible to grow $40,000 to $50,000 worth of
vegetables on an acre of land," he said.
On top of Rowe Mesa, 20 miles down a rutted, single-lane dirt road and more
than 60 miles from the nearest grocery store in Santa Fe, Michael and Dawn
Moon are raising a family and trying to help a nonprofit organization build
a profitable, wildlife-friendly cattle ranch.
The ranch in San Miguel County is the Rowe Mesa Grassbank, run by the
Quivira Coalition, a Santa Fe nonprofit founded by two Sierra Club members
and a rancher. The group is devoted to proving good ranching is better for
land and wildlife than driving ranchers out of business. The grass bank is
leased from the Santa Fe National Forest and provides a place where
public-land ranchers can bring their cattle while resting their grazing
allotments.
Turning a grant-dependent ranch into a self-sustaining one is a big
challenge when even private ranching is only a marginal moneymaker, Moon
said. Whether private or nonprofit, "to ranch well today, you can't be
an idiot. There's a lot of ranchers and cowboys who don't do it well,"
Moon said. "To me, it's a balance between head and hands."
Michael Moon grew up on what he calls a "lifestyle ranch" in
Mariposa, Calif., the son of ranch-bred parents from Roy, N.M. He earned a
degree in history of music and the humanities from the University of
Redlands and spent a year in Scotland. He considered law school but instead
got a job working on a ranch. "I thought, 'Cool, I can get paid for
riding horses and playing guitar."'
His wife, Dawn, 36, was raised in Cleveland. After earning a political
science degree and studying in Germany, she headed to Colorado to work as a
waitress at a dude ranch, where she met Michael. Over time, she learned to
ride horses and move cows.
After they married, the couple spent eight months with the Peace Corps in
Ecuador before Michael took a job managing a 60,000-acre Montana ranch for
the Nature Conservancy near the small town of Malta. "All those farm
and ranch kids went off to do cool things all over the world," Moon
said. "People think all these hick kids will fail in the big city. They
do great."
Michael Moon calls himself a bit of a "ranching addict."
"I'm not a strict traditionalist, but I love the culture," he
said.
The Labor Department lays out the challenges that small farm operations face
today. They include unpredictable weather, rising fuel costs and low
commodity price. Add to that the potential devastation by insects or disease
in a single growing season and, in New Mexico, the problem of a highly
variable water supply.
But "for those who enter farming or ranching, the disadvantages are
counterbalanced by the quality of life in a rural area, working outdoors,
being self-employed and making a living off the land," the Labor
Department report said.
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