About

We are a nonprofit program of Localogy, a 501(c)(3) in Questa, New Mexico. Our mission is to grow food security, cultural continuity, and economic vitality in northern Taos County by inspiring, educating, and equipping the next generation.

We work to revitalize local agriculture, promote education, economic opportunities and food equity, and contribute meaningfully to our local food system.

We began to do this work as a program in 2024, although so much came before. We are part of a longer lineage and we aspire to keep younger generations, especially youth, engaged in growing food in northern New Mexico.

We hire, mentor and instruct paid Youth Interns and farm together at Cerro Vista Farm. We sell produce at the Farmers Market and Sangre de Cristo Valley Market in Questa.

At Cerro Vista, farmer Daniel Carmona is sharing his decades of locally adapted farming experience with a regular cohort, ages 10-17, along with their mentors.

Farmer Daniel Carmona August 6, 2024, Cerro Vista Farm. Photo credit, Gaea McGahee

We work in collaboration with other educators, programs and summer camps at garden sites in Questa: Casas de Culturas and Questa Farmers Market (QFM), each demonstrate different agricultural practices, and each offer educational opportunities with a focus on permaculture.

Ancient apricot tree at Casas, read more from Estevan Rael-Galvez here
Garden volunteer Lorie Jaramillo in front if a vast arugula patch at Casas de Culturas, Sept 2024

QFM has managed and improved a market site since 2018 on land owned by the Questa Economic Development Fund (QEDF). QFM staff, youth, community members and volunteers have established gardens and a food forest and reconnected the land to the acequia system.

The food forest at QFM, adjacent to Casas, across Cabresto Rd. This piece of land was reconnected to the acequia system in 2022. Mentors, Interns and Volunteers working late fall among baby apricot trees, orach (mountain spinach), calendula, daikon, peas, and much more, 2024
Daikon radish at QFM food forest help drill into the soil, break up compacted ground and add nutrients to the soil web, fall 2024

Our vision

Mornings at Cerro Vista Farm begin with farmer Carmona producing a post-it note from his shirt pocket with a list of duties for the day. This list represents his intimate knowledge; the skill and awareness that guide the farm operations. The list is what we are passing down, our goal is for interns to be producing it in time. Farming is not learned in one day, or even one season. It requires years of trial and error, of witnessing first hand the ups and downs. Each day with Cultivo operating at local farms and gardens is a day that will be passed on to the next cohort of growers, food producers and teachers. Our project is bolstering a sense of local pride and underscoring the identity of the region, one with deep agricultural roots.