Love of the Land from Mentors to Youth
Valarie Morris
for New Mexico Free Press
April 29, 2009
Pilar Trujillo, Youth Coordinator for the New Mexico Acequia Association (NMAA), is always on the go in her work to help protect the communal irrigation systems.
She travels to the Seed Exchange event in Española, which NMAA helped organize, provides logistical support for youth so they can participate in the many activities offered by the Sembrando Semillas [Planting Seeds] Program, and attends Food Justice conferences as far away as Puerto Rico. Trujillo emphasizes that it is the support of her community that allows her to do this important work.
Maintaining the integrity of the acequia indo-hispano culture and growing food are the cornerstones of the NMAA. From the pre-Spanish colonial days 400 years ago across the generations, the intermingled acequia communities have developed a unique water management style designed for the local environment to optimize food production.
This is the legacy that Trujillo and the NMAA perpetuate in their efforts to increase the number of acequia parciantes, the people who share the irrigation water supply. Committed to giving youth hands-on experience to learn about and return to the farming and ranching traditions of their ancestors, Trujillo especially wants the youth to "develop a sense of querencia — love of the land."
Current Sembrando Semillas agricultural projects are located in Pecos, Chamisal, North of Questa, and Mora in New Mexico. The San Luis site is located at the southern part of Colorado. Trujillo, who has a degree in Environmental Studies, also works on her family's farm in Chimayo.
Youth participants range in age from 12 to 20 with usually an equal number of girls and boys. All receive a small stipend. Although most interns attend middle or high school, youth of all ages are invited to participate. Nearly 20 interns are now active in the program under the guidance of six maestros, the mentors who sometimes are husband and wife teams.
In the Sembrando Semillas Program, the maestros walk the interns through the agricultural season. It begins with clearing the fields, cleaning the irrigation ditches (acequias), and then plowing, discing, and tilling the soil.
Seed cleaning comes next, followed by planting, irrigating, weeding, harvesting, food processing, and finally storing the food. Trujillo points out that saving seeds from year to year and sharing them with others in the community for plentiful new harvests is key to the tradition.
Cattle ranching, integral to the youth program, has a year-round focus. Activities include calving, planting alfalfa, taking the cattle to the sierras to graze in the summer, bringing them back down to the ranch, feeding them, and applying established cattle husbandry practices.
Trujillo enthusiastically describes the other projects she plans for the youth, like the cambalache where groups bring food to share for a meal. Later this year in Chamisal, interns will make a horno, an outdoor oven. Backpacking events are frequently on the agenda. "I also encourage the interns to attend youth leadership and youth agricultural conferences," which are sometimes out of state, Trujillo said.
Trujillo helps the interns document their experiences through digital storytelling videos. "In the past," she said, "interns have won 2nd and 3rd place in the ESE! [Española Showing Excellence] Video Festival." This year a youth from Sembrando Semillas will be showing his video about flood irrigation in the festival.
The public is invited to watch a free showing of the 31 short videos submitted for the festival on May 1 in Española at Northern New Mexico College, Center for the Arts Auditorium from 7 to 9 p.m.