On Day Three of our Southwest Climate Studio Art course, we had the opportunity to visit the farm of Jeanette (Jen) Hart-Mann in Anton Chico. Alongside her farming work, Jen is an artist: she is Director of Land Arts of the American West program and Associate Professor in the Art & Ecology program at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She is also Co-Founder and Co-Director of SeedBroadcast, “an artist collective committed to uplifting the culture in agri-Culture through creative public engagement and open-source seed sharing” (SeedBroadcast description from Jen’s UNM biography page, which you can access here to learn more about her). In fact, we were able to take a copy of the most recent issue of SeedBroadcast’s publication with us after our visit!
Jen welcomed us to her land and shared about the work she and her community are doing in experimenting with planting native and resilient crops for our changing climate. At the farm, cover crops and trees are also planted to benefit soil health, and the sheep are allowed to graze planting areas after harvest. To irrigate crops, they draw water from an acequia connected to the Pecos River. Acequias form a unique water management/irrigation system within New Mexico, in which river water is diverted into hand-dug ditch-like canals and shared by landowners. Acequias are collectively managed by members (or landowners) within the corresponding area of land, with the acequia Mayordomo having the primary leadership role in acequia management, overseeing the condition of the acequia and coordinating water use with other members. The development of acequias is explored by Jose Rivera in “Irrigation Communities on the Río Grande,” which was one of our course readings. In his text, Rivera briefly discusses different agricultural and water management systems of the Puebloan people prior to the arrival of Spanish colonizers and the Spanish colonizers’ development of systems to divert water from rivers. Rivera describes the acequias as being influenced by “diverse sources,” including “irrigation practices common to the arid regions in the south of Spain…based on traditions from the Roman period; the superimposition of Arabic customs and techniques during the seven centuries of occupation of Spain by the Moors; and the influence of Pueblo Indian agriculture as observed” by the Spanish (Rivera 5).
During our visit, we were lucky to have the chance to meet and talk with Bill, the Mayordomo of the acequia they draw water from at the farm. In fact, the first part of my blog’s title–“Farming into the Apocalypse”–is a quote directly from Bill. When our group first introduced our course to him, we described the climate change component of our studies, and, for me, Bill’s quote was a memorable part of his response. (As a personal side note since I’ve reflected on our farm visit while writing this entry, Bill’s quote stands out to me because I believe it captures both the gravity of our climate crisis and what remains possible under our increasingly extreme circumstances). Later on, when our group was able to visit with Bill more, it was special to hear from him about his firsthand experience as Mayordomo and to learn about the complexities of having such a role in managing a communal water system, such as trying to find agreement amongst acequia members and relying on upstream members to uphold their water use agreements. Bill also shared about the potential for acequias to return water to the river system if water can soak into the ground of unlined acequias and travel within the watershed as groundwater.
We happened to be on the farm on a day they were scheduled to draw water from the acequia and were able to observe how the water flows through their planted sections, traveling between their rows of plants in small canals. We also learned that there may be times during the summer when they go without drawing water for a couple of weeks.
In talking to Jen and Bill about acequias, we further got a sense of their perspectives on water and attention to where it is flowing from, especially regarding potential impacts on the water upstream of the farm. For example, though they did not ultimately experience impacts to their water, they shared about being concerned when massive fires burned in Northern New Mexico a few years ago and the potential effects to the water within their acequia system that could have had due to ash and contaminates from the fire entering upstream waters.
Alongside being able to learn about the important work they are doing related to food resilience in our changing climate and hearing a personal account about acequias and acequia management, we had the opportunity to plant squash seeds, shell the most beautiful beans, and feed the lambs! From several of these experiences and in getting to spend time with Jen, I felt the value of collaboration- between humans, and humans and non-humans (e.g., working together to plant a row of squash seeds by making sections for smaller groups to plant and learning about how the squash planted–by Jen’s direction and our own hands–will intermingle to potentially create more kinds of squash and seeds).
The theme of collaboration continued to come up across several of our course experiences and texts*, and, including our early experience at Jen’s farm, has been valuable for me to reflect on. Getting to both experience and learn about collaborative work throughout our course–including within different kinds of relationships as noted above and under varied and not always positive circumstances–has helped emphasize paths forward in addressing our climate crisis.
Reference: Jose Rivera, “Irrigation Communities on the Río Grande”
* Examples of course texts I felt touched on different collaborative efforts, including collaboration beyond human relationships:
~ Regis Pecos, “The History of Cochiti Lake from the Pueblo Perspective” (I feel that Pecos’s article provides a nuanced example of collaboration as, later in his article, Pecos discusses how Cochiti Pueblo and the Army Corps of Engineers have developed more of a partnership, the latter having brought great harm to Cochiti Pueblo in developing Cochiti Dam through flooding Cochiti agricultural lands and places with spiritual significance).
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System” (Kimmerer discusses the development of corn, giving not only humans’ agency in corn’s cultivation over time but also the corn itself).
~ Xiye Bastida, “Calling In” (A youth perspective on the climate justice movement, in which Bastida directly calls for “collaborating across sectors and generations”).