6: Adaptive Agriculture in Northern New Mexico

Guest: Don Bustos, Santa Cruz FarmsIrrigated from the Acequia del Llano running across the upper end of his four acres outside Española, New Mexico, Don Bustos' Santa Cruz Farms feels as if it has been there as long as the land itself. A rambling walk through the farm follows ditches carrying the water past patches of asparagus and the last of the blackberries, down one side past some new herbs Bustos is experimenting with - a path the water has traveled for the 400 years this land has been watered in the same traditional way.But farming in the same way his ancestors have for four centuries means that Santa Cruz Farms must be both traditional and a thoroughly modern institution - rooted in the acequia culture and small-scale organic growing, but also embodying the sort of ever-present adaptations that have always been at the heart of maintaining the institution of agriculture in a changing world. As Bustos explains, new crops, new markets, and new irrigation technologies have helped Santa Cruz Farms thrive.