Progress 10/01/03 to 09/30/08
Outputs
OUTPUTS: A project to evaluate the performance of organic strawberry and raspberry production under hoop houses was completed, and we made our report. A journal paper on the project has been completed and is ready to send out for review. An AES report that summarizes the OASIS production experience was published in 2008. The book of esssays by Fred Kirschenmann that I collected and edited during 2008 was accepted for publication by University Press of Kentucky in December 2008. The book is tentatively entitled, Evolution of an Ecological Conscience. I should complete work (final editing and organization) on the manuscript in 2009. The book is currently 430 pages long, down from maybe 1,000 pages of manuscript, and I've edited it three times. I was invited to write a chapter in a book edited by Laura Sayre, a book which will focus on student farm experiences across the country. That book has been tentatively accepted for publication at the University Press of Kentucky. PARTICIPANTS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. TARGET AUDIENCES: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
The collaboration with the Colonias Development Council has continued, as I've begun serving on their board of directors and giving workshops to the youth participants in the Youth Conservation Corps project to build community gardens and cold frames in Chaparral, Vado, and Anthony. Collaboration with the Community of Hope included helping to establish a community garden, setting up a cold frame workshop with Del Jimenez at Community of Hope and advertising it to the CDC so their staff could transfer the knowledge to the YCC project, sitting on a search committee for the first garden coordinator, and continuing to serve on their garden committee. The Community of Hope has set up a CSA for low-income recipients of food pantry food from Casa de Peligrinos. A local lavender farmer has approached me on how to set up a lavender product CSA. Another landowner has consulted with me twice about setting up a CSA on her farm. I took students to the 2008 NM Organic Farming Conference in February and on a spring break tour in March to visit Los Lunas Research Station, the Sustainable Agriculture Science Center at Alcalde, and to work on Don Busto's strawberry farming operation in Espanola. I also organized a student field trip to visit Mimbres Farm, a diversified organic farm in the Mimbres Valley.
Publications
- Falk, C.L., P. Pao, C.S. Cramer, & E. Silva. 2008. OASIS: A Campus-Based, Organic, Community Supported Agriculture Farm, NMSU-AES Research Report 760, May 2008.
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Progress 01/01/07 to 12/31/07
Outputs
I conducted a survey of organic food manufacturers at the beginning of 2005. A paper based on this work was accepted for publication in Fall 2007. I am involved in two grants related to organic field production topics and a third grant focusing on the fabrication of a root vegetable washing station for use by small farms. The two field research grants both had rocky starts, however, due to their location off campus. My horticulture colleague, Erin Silva, had not been replaced as of late fall 2007. The RMA project lost all of its first year research due to problems with the irrigation system at the off-campus location, and the second year research was poorly managed due to Erin's absence. In year 3, 2007, I took over as PI, and we modified the research plan. The RMA project is now at Leyendecker, and the $10,000 in irrigation investments at the off-campus site are just sitting there still, as far as I now. That irrigation system to my knowledge has never been verified
that it works properly. The site at Leyendecker is on a plot lent by Stephanie Walker, because no other plots were made available. I have heard this plot is in an area that is considered the least desirable on the farm. Now I know why. There is visible salt in the soil, and we suspect high soil salinity has affected our ability to grow spinach on the plot, but we have no alternative site available. The soil also has a high clay content, which makes it challenging to plant small vegetables seeds. A project to evaluate the performance of organic strawberry and raspberry production under hoop houses was completed, and we made our report. A presentation which incorporates our economic analyses I will co-present with Ron Walser at the NM Organic Conference in February. The graduate student hired on the project will present a paper in May at an agribusiness conference in Torreon, Mexico. The vegetable washing facility project was a successful learning experience for the engineering students
who participated in it, according to Regents professor Ricardo Jacquez. Fabrication took place and was completed in 2007, but the prototype was never put together by the engineers and now sits at Jeff' Graham's farm. It seems unusable to me for several reasons. We made little progress in 2007 on the redesign, but are determined in the next two months to finalize a new design, for presentation at the February NM Organic Conference. I completed work on the AES bulletin that summarizes the OASIS production experience, submitted one journal article from that publication, which is in revise and resubmit at HortTechnology, and hope to extract a few more pubs from the manuscript during 2008.
Impacts
The OASIS project was the first organic garden on the NMSU main campus, the first organic vegetable production class, and the first CSA venture in southern New Mexico. In five years, the project earned $115,201 in gross income and grew 554 varieties, including 372 varieties of 39 vegetables, 32 varieties of 15 herbs, and 150 varieties of 72 flowers on approximately an acre of land. I co-taught the class 10 semesters over the five years, and did the work to include the class in general education and the Honors College. This experience made it possible for me to successfully write or co-write various grants totaling about $500,000 in organic and sustainable agriculture. I have also begun collaborating with the Colonias Development Council, first to help them write a successful Community Food Grant, and now to help guide its implementation. I continue to get inquiries about membership availability in OASIS, one year after we shut down. I continue to get students in my
office asking to take the class. Two faculty in the college of engineering contacted me about collaborating on a Higher Education Challenge grant proposal to train engineers in a way that will lead to careers in sustainable/organic agriculture. I helped Lois Stanford in the College of A&S to put together a new supplementary major in sustainable development, which includes the OASIS class as a core class. OASIS students have gone on to take jobs as head farmer at the Tucson food pantry, farming organically on the Navajo Nation, as a county agricultural extension agent, and starting other private small farm efforts both in NM and in other states. The effort that two colleagues and I made to write legislative proposals for funding the Small Farms Institute on main campus have gotten traction, and led to a report in the college favoring creation of the SFI. A local farmer, Jeff Graham, who began his CSA three years ago using waiting list names from OASIS, is still in business. He
conducted the legislative lobbying effort in Santa Fe on behalf of the SFI last year. He plans to return in 2008 to get recurring funds. A local school teacher who teaches SPED students and who regularly visited OASIS with her students, recently retired and with my help wants to open a new CSA in town. An OASIS student put in a garden at Jornada Elementary, where the teacher, Sandy Degler, worked. The OASIS student used the experience as her Honors thesis in the Honors College.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/06 to 12/31/06
Outputs
I conducted a survey of organic food manufacturers at the beginning of 2005. A graduate student is working on the analysis. A project to evaluate the performance of organic strawberry and raspberry production under hoop houses is underway. The campus CSA, OASIS, ended at the end of 2006 due to lack of university and college support for the class and project.
Impacts
My advice and help has been sought by numerous community groups and individuals interested in small farming options and CSAs. The Town of Mesilla Board of Trustees invited me to speak about options for small farms as the evaluate a proposal to require new housing developments to be clustered, leaving land in a green belt for farming.
Publications
- Falk, C. L. , E. Silva and P. Pao. Del Salon de la Clase a la Comunidad: Un Enfoque Integrado a La Ensenanza, La Investigacion Y Extension Universitaria En Agricultura Organica. Revista Mexicana de Agronegocios, 19(2006):28-51. In English and Spanish.
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Progress 01/01/05 to 12/31/05
Outputs
I conducted a survey of organic food manufacturers at the beginning of 2005 and am currently preparing a manuscript from it. I co-wrote two grants related to organic field production topics with a colleague in Agronomy/Horticulture and wrote a third grant to fund design and fabrication of a root vegetable washing station to be used by small farms. I gave two presentations in Mexico on organic production and marketing, one of them a 15-hour seminar. I also made a day-long presentation in Albuquerque in a seminar sponsored by the NM Organic Commodity Commission on the nuts and bolts of managing CSA farms. Several inquiries for assistance have ensued from these presentations, including from high schools in the state. I am in discussions with a new faculty member in the AXED department to develop a proposal on instituting CSA projects in high schools, give the interest by three high school teachers from across the state. If successful, more students would probably develop
interests in small farming and agriculture careers, and the CSA model would be given additional exposure. I toured several organic farms in New Mexico to meet the farmer collaborator participants in the Cornell project, Organic Seed Partnerships.
Impacts
Through OASIS, we have offered for sale this year from other producers, organic pecans, fruit shares, eggs, and beef and pork. One new CSA opened in 2005 in Las Cruces due to the OASIS project. We gave our waiting list to that farmer.
Publications
- Falk, C., P. Pao, and C.S. Cramer. 2005. "Teaching Diversified Organic Crop Production using the Community Supported Agriculture Farming System Model," Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education. 34(2005):8-12.
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Progress 01/01/04 to 12/31/04
Outputs
I have a survey of organic food manufacturers approved and ready to administer at the beginning of 2005. I obtained a mailing list of over 700 manufacturers of organic food products from the Organic Trade Association, which I joined. We are planning to examine the interest in purchasing NM organic and conventional pecans, chiles, and onions specifically, and other organic crops more generally. I developed financial feasibility models in two projects this year with agribusiness concerns in Mississippi (fresh vegetable packing) and Viriginia (turkey growers taking over a Pilgrim's Pride processing plant). The latter project is ongoing and has enabled a group of turkey producers to stay in business when Pilgrim's Pride decided to exit the turkey processing industry and idle its plant. I developed financial analyses for Charles Martin at NMSU's Alcalde Sustainable Agriculture Science Center, on the impacts of irrigation system, water volume, and weeding method on three
medicinal herbs grown in an organic production system.
Impacts
In 2004, we helped a local egg producer and livestock producer find markets through OASIS, the organic CSA project on campus. We also met with a local organic farmer to begin planning for his 2005 start of a CSA project using our waiting list members. In 2005, we will offer sales opportunities to a local organic pecan grower through OASIS and grow specialty crops for the HRTM department and DABCC cooking classes, who will use the organic vegetables, flowers, and herbs in weekly class food preparation as well as specialty meals offered to the public. Discussions are underway with a local organic fruit grower who may decide to offer OASIS members fruit shares.
Publications
- Mexal, J.L., C.L. Falk, A. Ulery, G. Picchioni, R. Ng, C. Taylor, A. Hagen. 2004. Iron-Rich Mine Tailings Fail to Perform as Fertilizer: An Economic Development Model. The U.S. Mexican Border Environment: Tribal Environmental Issues of the Border Region, Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy (SCERP) Monograph Series No. 9. M. Wilken-Robertson, ed. San Diego: San Diego State University.
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Progress 01/01/03 to 12/31/03
Outputs
This project has just begun. There is no progress to report.
Impacts
This project should be able to help expand market and income for New Mexico organic producers.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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