Food/Agriculture

During March 2013, Bernalillo County has scheduled many events. Plus, it’s also time to apply for the Master Naturalist Program. Please see the attached Open Space Program of Events for a complete listing of the County’s Open Space activities this year. You can sign up for the workshops this month at bernco.gov/openspace.

Master Naturalist Program
Accepting applications now until March 29. The training will take place this June and July at Bachechi Open Space (9521 Rio Grande Blvd. NW)

By Dan Lorimier, Chapter Conservation Coordinator and Lobbyist

After almost three years of wrangling with New Mexico’s dairy industry, calling themselves the Dairy Industry Group for a Cleaner Environment (DIGCE), and the New Mexico Environment Department’s Groundwater Quality Bureau, the Rio Grande Chapter saw the Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) implement new regulations specific to the dairy industry early in 2012.

By Dan Lorimier, Conservation coordinator, Southern and El Paso groups

After roughly two and a half years of effort, the Rio Grande Chapter has successfully helped protect New Mexico’s precious but highly threatened groundwater that 9 out of 10 of us rely on for drinking.

Over the past three years, our family has consumed 38% less water than the prior owners of our house. During this same time period, the neighbor’s water consumption has been 9 times our water consumption in a house of similar size. Learn what you can do.

December 15 – The New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) today passed New Mexico’s first industry-specific regulations for the dairy industry. The new regulations will govern dairy waste pollution in ground water. The decision marks the end of a two-year process begun by the dairy industry itself, which asked for industry-specific regulations during the 2009 New Mexico legislative session.

“These regulations are way overdue”, said Jerry Nivens of Caballo Concerned Citizens. “This is a victory for clean water.”

Pioneers around the country and the world are building soil, increasing local food production, improving the water cycle and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Hear and meet them in one place at The Carbon Ranch: Using Food and Stewardship to Build Soil and Fight Climate Change, the Quivira Coalition's 9th annual conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Nov. 10-12.

The growth of global food markets, agricultural subsidies and megastore retail chains has transformed the food New Mexicans consume today, and stands in stark contrast to providing food just 60 years ago. Along the river valleys of New Mexico there has been continuous agriculture in small pueblos and villages thanks in part to ingenious water-giving acequias. The Anazazi ancestors of today’s Puebloan Native Americans settled near year-round rivers around 1400 and in the 17th century Hispanic settlements also became established.