The Challenges of Acequia Farming - Part I

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Today's blog marks the start of a new series by acequia farmers of the Upper Rio Grande bioregion. The series will focus on the everyday and long-term challenges facing acequia farmers. These challenges include legal, economic, technological, social, political, and ecological issues. Some of the forthcoming entries will, by preference of guest bloggers, feature anonymous voices. We encourage acequia farmers to discuss these challenges and analyze our successful or failed strategies and tactics. How do we sustain place-based agroecosystems (resilience) and civic institutions of self-governance (autonomy)? We believe these two - resilience and autonomy - are interrelated values central to sustaining Rio Arriba acequia watershed communities into the far future. NOTICIA: Ofrecemos una traducción en español despues de la entrada en inglés.

Carl Cormier of Charlotte, North Carolina makes the round bales at Rancho Dos Acequias, San Acacio Bottom Lands, Colorado.

Acequia mutual-aid before technology Devon G. Peña Parciante, Acequia de la Gente de San Luis

San Acacio Bottom Lands, CO. The central challenges I have faced this year as an acequia farmer involved technology or, more precisely, the breakdown of our farm machines. This is common around here since most of the equipment is "old" to "very old." I faced a chain of breakdowns in the old seventies Sperry-New Holland "swather" that I have used for the past three years to cut our alfalfa and grass meadows. The first breakdown involved the ignition system and it took Joe Gallegos and I a week, finally with the help of a Colorado College bus driver, to rewire the ignition system and repair this problem. The second failure involved the pair of eight-foot sickles (with multiple knives). The hay is so thick this year, and the knives dull, that it became impossible to keep cutting. We had to unplug the machine from built-up hay "nuggets" once every half hour or so. This calamity took some time to resolve since the sickles had to be replaced and that unfortunately involved an error by the supplier who initially ordered 14 instead of 16 foot replacement sickles. Another 3-4 days lost. The third and catastrophic blow arrived two days after the sickle problem was fixed with the shearing of the "Pittman" joint that holds the shafts and sickles together in jib-jabbing harmony while the hay is being cut. I swear that at times I felt like that befuddled farmer in Wendell Berry's story about the strangely unfolding complexity of something as seemingly and routinely simple as fixing a flat on a large tractor tire, which nowadays must be filled not just with air but calcium chloride or some other chemical mix to appropriately balance the tire given the demands of the ever-larger implements we pull with our machines. The bigger and more complex the machine, the greater the potential for localized failures leading to system-wide shutdown. This seems an appropriate rule for the state of our ever more complex technological systems in agriculture. My experiences with the old swather illustrated something very important and it is that social cooperation and mutual aid in the acequiahood are the practices that sustained us in the midst of constant breakdowns of machinery. We did finish our hay cutting and indeed produced a record 100+ half-ton round bales. That is a lot of hay. This was possible because we could turn to other farmers in the face of a mechanical failure and found improvised solutions through the opportunities our acequiahood neighbors generously offered. My neighbor Joe Gallegos finished the hay cut with his Case disk mower and we got the baling done on time without further incident. This year, our first cut of hay at Rancho Dos Acequias was produced through the collaboration of four different local farmers and a friend visiting from North Carolina who is married to a local woman with historic farm land on the Peoples' Ditch. This sort of "social capital" is an especially significant community resource in the survival of acequia farmers and is the source of our resilience in the face of technical or mechanical breakdowns.

Ayuda mutua de acequia frente tecnología Devon G. Peña Parciante, Acequia de la Gente de San Luis

Las Vegas de San Acacio, CO. Los mayores retos que encontre este año como agricultor de acequia involucraron tecnología o, mas precisamente, el descompanamiento de la maquinaría del rancho. Esto es común por estas partes por el hecho de que el equipo es “viejo” o “muy viejo.” Enfrenté una cadena de descompanamientos en la vieja maquina de los sesentas que es la Sperry-New Holland cortadora de heno que he usado los ultimos tres años para cortar nuestras vegas de alfalfa y zacate. El primer descompanamiento involucro el sístema de arranque y José Gallegos y yo nos tardamos una semana, finalmente con la ayuda de un chofer del Colegio de Colorado, para componer este problema. El segundo fallacimiento involucro el par de hozes de ocho pies (con multiples navajas). El heno (alfalfa y zacate) esta tan grueso este año, y las navajas tan embotadas, que fue imposible seguir cortando. Tuvimos que desenchufar la maquina como casi cada media hora porque se atoro con trozos de heno. Esta calimidad se tardo bien tiempo para resolver porque tuvimos que reemplazar los hozes y eso desafortunadamente involucro un error por parte del abastecedor que inicialmente ordeno hozes de 14 en vez de 16 pies. Perdímos otros 3-4 días. El tercer y catastrófico fracaso ocurrio dos días despues de que arreglamos el problema de los hozes con el cizalladuramiento de la ensambladura “Pittman” que detiene los ejes y hozes conjuntos en harmonía cuando estamos cortando el alfalfa y zacate. Lo juro que a tiempos me sentía como el ranchero en el cuento de Wendell Berry sobre la complejidad extranjeramente desplegandose de algo aparientamente sencillo y rutino como el hecho de arreglar una llanta de tractor ponchada, que en estos días se llena no solamente con aire sino con cloruro cálcico o algúna otra mezcla de químicos para balancear apropiadamente la llanta dado las demandas de los implementos siempre mas grandes que jalamos con nuestras maquinas. Lo mas grande y complicada la maquina, lo mas la potencia para fracasos localizados que nos llevan a un derramiento del entero sístema. Esto parece ser una apropiada regla para describir el estado de nuestros siempre mas complicados sístemas de tecnología en agrícultura. Mis experiencias con el viejo cortador de heno illustraron algo muy importante y esto es que la coperación social y ayuda mutua en el barrio de la acequia son prácticas que nos sostienen en medio de los constantes derrumbes de la maquinaria. En fín, acabamos con el corte de heno y seguramente producímos una nueva tasa alta con más de cíen pacas redondas de alfalfa y zacate. Es mucho heno. Fue possible este esfuerzo porque podímos contar con la ayuda de los otros parciantes para enfrentar el fracaso mecaníco y hallamos solucíones improvisadas por medio de las oportunidades ofrecidas por nuestros graciosos vecinos del barrio de acequia. Mi vecino José Gallegos acabó el corte con su guadañero tipo “Case” con discos en vez de hozes y terminamos con el trabajo de empacar en tiempo sin incidente adicional. Este año, el primer corte de heno en el Rancho Dos Acequias fue producto de la colaboración de cuatro diferentes rancheros y un amigo visitando de Carolina del Norte que esta casado con una mujer local con raízes históricas en la tierra de la Acequia de la Gente. Este tipo de “capital social” es un recurso comunitario especialmente significativo para la sobreviviencia de los parciantes de acequia y es el fuente de nuestra resilencia para enfrentar los retos técnicos o mécanicos.

La comida

Fiestas de Santana y Santiago: Food, Family, and Place Ways EL RITO, CO. Since April 23, and the annual limpieza y saca de acequia, we have been through the planting of heirloom crops, first and second irrigations, first hay-cut and baling, and the interminable chore of fence-building and mending. It has been an intense cycle of communal labor and cooperative endeavors in our acequiahood. The climatic and agriculture cycle sets the conditions but the social relations of production on our Acequia Madre determine the pace of our work days and weeks. It has been another good year for collaborative labors as neighbors plowed, planted, and cultivated our fields while we lent a hand by harrowing and disking our neighbors' field and row crop plots. We have a lot of new acreage under production this year in the acequiahood including Felix and Steven Romero's organic Peruvian Purple and Red McClure potatoes. Rancho Dos Acequias, home of our Acequia Institute, has two acres of heirloom maiz de concho for our forthcoming annual chicos roast in late August through mid September. We also planted a half acre of bolita beans for our seed "memory bank" project. There are also a lot of gardens around the villages this year including the half-acre community garden maintained by the Sembrando Semillas youth and hosted by Fernando Martinez at his family farm on Acequia del Cerro. Santa Ana y Santiago: A Celebration of Place Ways This is the weekend that the villages of Chama and San Luis, Colorado celebrate their respective patron saints - Santiago and Santa Ana. This celebratory weekend is really a collective family reunion and the population of our six villages mushrooms from about 800 to a record 10,000. The visitors are mostly folks rooted in multiple generations of local acequia farming families and their friends from across the United States. This year's events seem especially noteworthy because the youth of the area took the lead in organizing many of the activities planned for the festivities including the parade, an auto show, pie, jam, and biscochito contests, and a theatrical performance on local culture presented under the auspices of the Novela Project. "Mi Tierra Natal" will be performed at the San Luis Museum and Cultural Center and is the result of the collaborative work of Sandra Santa Cruz with the youth of our Sembrando Semillas acequia agricultural heritage project. The public events are a vital part of this celebration, but the most compelling reason everyone comes out for Santiago y Santa Ana is that this is an annual opportunity for large family reunions. We participate in the annual family and friends reunion with the Corpus A. and Yvette Gallegos family at their historic Centennial Farm a mile west of the village of San Luis. The main event is a matanza, the slaughter and preparation of a locally-raised barn animal. This traditionally involves a lamb, goat, or hog although some years we include more than one of the critters and throw in a turkey or ham. The roast occurs in a poso, a fire pit in the sandy loam of the Gallegos Ranch. The overnight fire pit roast culminates in a large and festive comida, a shared ritual meal, that is part of the "cultural glue" that holds our multigenerational families together with a strong sense of place. This year, the Gallegos Family annual comida has a suckling pig at the center of the ritual meal. The pig will be roasted overnight in a fire pit with pinon and apple wood. The pork carnitas will be accompanied by sweet Olathe corn and vast salad fixings from our home kitchen gardens.

The front half and head of the pig is thawed in the Gallegos Family fire pit. The pig will be skinned and then wrapped in foil for a slow overnight roast.

La comida: More than nutrition In their book, Grassroots Postmodernism: Remaking the Soil of Culture, Gustavo Esteva and Mahdu Prakash make the following observation about la comida:

There is no English word for comida. It is not easy to explain why. Thinking of that makes us feel sad. While “feast” comes closest in its implication of eating together, it refers only to a special occasion, while comida is eating by the “social majorities” in the “normal” course of every day. Perhaps we need to recall that the Anglo-Saxon world was the cultural space in which the industrial mode of production was established first and foremost. There, vernacular activities related to comida have been suffocated or suppressed (Esteva and Prakash 1998: 59).

The Culebra River acequia villages are one of those few remaining places in the U.S. where the "social majority" (everyday people) are still nurturing a robust local food system that is decidedly non-industrial and place-based. While la comida celebrated annually during Santiago y Santa Ana is a "ritual feast," this special event is rooted in the cultural foodways of the Culebra River villages. Daily shared meals are indeed an example of "eating together" as an ordinary part of everyday lived experience where the point is not just to fulfill nutrition but engage in the social act of conviviality. This everyday conviviality is the living root of the practice of slow, local, and deep foods. La comida shared on the feast days of Santiago y Santa Ana is merely the luminous signpost that celebrates the everyday sharing of food and the local place-based wisdom that makes it possible.