Getting Back to Mother Earth - Donne Gonzalez & Emily Arasim
In this episode of In Praxis, we are joined by Donne Gonzalez and Emily Arasim from New Mexico Acequia Association (NMAA). Donne is the Farm Trainer/Farm Manager and Emily serves as the Youth Education Coordinator. Both Donne and Emily are deeply committed in serving as caretakers, and passing on knowledge about intergenerational farming and the larger systems impacting people living in the area. They discuss the importance of returning our hands and hearts to the land starting with the land in our backyard. Through building our relationships back with the land, the cascading consequences builds and heals our communities.
This episode of In Praxis is a part of Season 3: Food Justice.
The information, opinions, views, and conclusions proposed in this episode are those of our podcast guests.
You can also tune into this episode on Anchor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. You can also watch this episode on YouTube with subtitles for accessibility.
Donne Gonzalez & Emily Arasim
Podcast Transcription
Donne Gonzalez 00:00
I've had more recently one of my apprentices just be like, Yo, if I didn't go through this program with you, I would have never realized how beautiful flowers are, I would have never realized how amazing and how powerful and medicinal they are. And I was just like, whoa, and he just shared with me that before he'd never felt safe enough because everybody's just always like, you know, guys don't like flowers. Flowers are for girls. I'm always just like everything is for everybody and everybody has to try it and be with it vibe with it.
Podcast Intro 00:52
Now listening to In Praxis, a podcast from The Praxis Project created to support, hear from, and uplift the stories coming out of the ecosystem of basebuilding organizing. An ecosystem that includes frontline groups building community power and the folks who help support their important work. In season three, our host Blair Franklin is exploring community driven strategies for food justice. Our guest are incredible community organizers working to advance their farming practices, community led urban farming, and equitable food procurement and retail. These are their stories about how we feed our communities with healthy, culturally appropriate, fair and affordable food, and build community power to advance health equity through food justice.
Blair Franklin 01:52
Welcome to both of you, Emily and Donne to our in practice podcast, super excited to hear more about your work in the context of food justice with New Mexico Acequia Association (NMAA). So if you can just start off by just telling us a little bit about who each of you are and what you do.
Donne Gonzalez 02:10
Thank you so much for having us. My name is Donne Gonzalez, and I am from northern New Mexico. Right now. I'm 27 years old, and I have been a part of the New Mexico Acequia Association for over 10 years. I started with the youth program called Sembrando Semillas, which gave me a really cool idea and a strong type of leadership and to finding who I am today. So coming out of that I got to be employed by them probably for the last six to seven years as a Farm Trainer and/or a Farm Manager and I absolutely love what I do. I get to work with a new cohort of apprentices every year and I get to teach them a 15 point based curriculum. Everything from how to create a farm plan, how to buy your seed or save your seed, plant your seed to just caring for and harvesting to marketing. I would say that I just work very closely with small communities and youth and I'm just big on tradition and what it means to be from such a beautiful place in New Mexico, connected to so many different sources of just love and food and family. But that is me. Thank you.
Emily Arasim 03:41
Hello everyone. My name is Emily Arasim. I identify as a young farmer and as a seed caretaker. I'm also 27 years old and was born and raised here in Northern New Mexico currently residing in Espanola Valley, both of which are you know, in the Tewa Pueblo homelands and also the homelands of our New Mexico Hispano, Chicano and Mexicano people who have called place home for many generations. It's important for me to acknowledge that, you know, my family does not come from the same deeply rooted ancestral communities like Donne does, so I defer to her always. But I'm endlessly humbled and grateful to get to be part of the work I do, protecting and caring for our food and water systems of the land base people of New Mexico. I've been working with the New Mexico Acequia Association for the past three years, and I served primarily as our Youth Education Coordinator along with Donne and also support our communications work and other projects wherever I can be helpful. And before that, I was actually honored to spend a year as a Farm Apprentice with our Sembrandos program learning from the lovely Donne. So in total, I've been with NMAA for about four years. And you know, outside of that work, I get to farm with the beloved, you know, elder mentor for the past seven seasons or so and organize with other quote marks young farmers here in New Mexico who are working to carry on the traditions and seeds of our different communities across the state.
Blair Franklin 05:19
Awesome. Wow. Thank you both so much for that beautiful introduction. And yeah, your commitment and working with communities in New Mexico. Yeah, that's powerful. So thanks so much for talking about your histories and legacies and your commitment to the work. I'm curious about what led each of you to actually started to do food justice work? What's your food story? How do you get to this role that you have currently.
Donne Gonzalez 05:41
So this is Donne. And I will say that, I feel like it started when I was just a kid, forever! I just felt like I've been so connected with my family and with the home cooked meals. And so I would say that my story has always been a pot of beans, and how welcoming that is just the smell when you're coming home from school, or when you get to hang out with your family. And I feel like that's been one of my biggest traditions is just to be able to have a family meal. But out of that, I feel that the work started with myself, I got to realize at a very young age that I had a really cool opportunity because I had land and because I had water and I had seed and I had elders around me who knew exactly what it meant to be a successful farmer. I remember going to really cool youth programs out of state and even like national conferences, and I realized that so many people were struggling to create a farm, you know, an urban farm in the city in a parking lot on a rooftop. And I was just like, what, like if these people are farming, and it's that important to them, and I have all the resources, then I absolutely need to figure it out. And so through all of that, I've always been a farmer and I went to college, I came back home, I was unsure what my next move was. But I remember being in my family garden, and I just had this huge epiphany about like, what was important to me, and what was healing.
Donne Gonzalez 07:26
And so it was farming, and it was being in touch with Mother Earth. For me, I come from a community that is very beautiful. But we also come from a lot of generational trauma, and pain. And I see that so many people need to be connected back to the earth so that they can heal. I see so many people who need good food. I always come from I grow food to share with my community with the kids and the elders and the people who were underserved. It's a pretty crazy rate. But right now there's 3 out of 4 kids in New Mexico are hungry, and 2 out of 4 do not have the nutritional value that they need to be successful in life. And that comes into you know, that just plays into like the education, then they can't pay attention in school, if you have a hungry tummy, you're not thinking about like how to be successful, you thinking about your next snack, and when you're gonna get that. And so that's really where my heart's at. I'm really set on creating a safe food system for my community. And that's me, and I'm really sorry, because I'm really emotional about all this stuff, because it's just so important. And it's always, it's just always been something that stirred my soul.
Emily Arasim 08:52
Love you, Donne. This is Emily and I also have to pay my respects first and foremost, to my mom who always had at least a small garden at my home when I was growing up. And to all the love of food and the land that I think kind of naturally weaves itself into your life as a young person that grows up in New Mexico. When I left home and went to college, I was studying international relations and politics to you know, be led to learning about kind of international food movements and specifically about work to protect global seed diversity from corporate theft and exploitation, you know, GMOs, Monsanto. All that kind of learning and learning about these things that were happening at a global level really lit up a light in me because I could so clearly see the parallels between what was happening at the global level and what I had seen growing up with me at home in New Mexico. I could see you know, how New Mexico was being affected by the corporate food systems that hurt the land and lead people to have to live unhealthy lives. But I also knew that my homeplace has some of the most badass defenders of local seeds and food ways that you could imagine that people here have kept their food traditions alive through centuries and decades of pressures and changes. I felt very clear and very grateful to be able to commit myself to getting home as soon as I could, and doing even the small things that I could to be part of this very long legacy of beautiful and necessary work that exists.
Blair Franklin 10:34
Wow, I am just completely blown and just so honored to be in community with both of you today and for the ways in which you just bring your hearts, I think into this work into the space of food justice. I mean, going from talking about, like, you know, I have this land and like what it took for me to like really start to cultivate it, and really kind of be at the feet of elders and create, like and sustain more healing relationship to land. And seeing the global impact of like corporations on access to land, right, and how that also has maybe created spaces where we aren't able to heal as deeply, and what it looks like to do some generational trauma work and heal through through access to food and access to land. Yeah, just first, thank you. Again, and you both have kind of talked a little bit about the state of the food landscape in New Mexico and in your communities. And you've said some statistics around 3 out of 4 kids being hungry, and 2 out of 4, not having enough instructional value in their day. Can you just give some more context to that? And also like what policies might have existed to create that lack of access and lack of access to healthy food?
Donne Gonzalez 11:46
Awesome. Yeah, it's a great question. I would say that, right now, most of New Mexico is a food desert, or what they would call a food desert. You know, I have to travel over around 30 miles to 35 to get to a store. And that would be you know, like Walmart, or Smiths, or even an organic natural foods type of location. But that's huge. And my community, we have like the Family Dollar, and we have to cute little family owned stores that are mostly successful. But it's really hard to know that the closest is the Dollar Store and that has a lot of people who buy things from them, the food desert, it's just very raw. I felt that since I've kind of started my farm endeavor that I've seen in my community be awaken. And they've come to me, you know, you're near and asked for seeds at the beginning of spring, because they're going to plant this year. And so I feel like once there is a garden that's visible, and that's doing good that the neighbors want more, they want to do that, too. They want to feed their grandkids, they want to feed their kids from their garden, which is really beautiful. Yeah, I just the very beautiful intergenerational gardens created because of the food desert. So I guess it's like a love hate for the food desert, because it's hard that we would have to travel so far. But at the same time, it's really beautiful that we get to use our land that we get to hang out with our family, and that we get to keep our seeds alive. I think that that's probably one of the healthiest things that I've seen come more into play the last few years.
Emily Arasim 13:31
So this is Emily and I would really affirm what Donne said, I think in my experience, our food system in New Mexico have a lot of extremes and complications and like contradictions, I guess it's the best way I can say it, you know, our state is primarily still rural. Farming is the heart of the cultural identity of so many of the people of this place, which we recognize is really unique, you know, within the United States. Like even for folks growing up in cities with no connection to food, like local foods still defines who we are, like the example of our world famous chili we have a really famous cuisine that people know and that we really identify with, it's part of our pride and who we are. We have thousands of families like Donne's family that maintain pieces of farmland that have been in their families for generations, and who carry on the seeds and the skills of their people in a really inspiring and unique way.
Emily Arasim 14:27
So when we talk about the challenges, it's also important to acknowledge that strength and beauty and love for the land that really is the heart of rural and all of New Mexico's communities. But at the same time people here are up against a lot. You know, New Mexico has been considered a sacrifice zone for hundreds of years. In fact, the term sacrifice zone was actually coined by the US government in policies talking about how it was going to treat New Mexico when it became a state. We are home to a massive nuclear weapons industry and also an oil and gas industry that affects a lot of our state, which of course bring environmental pollution but, also fuel the huge economic disparities that primarily impact our Indigenous and Hispano and Mexicano communities who are also the communities who are farmers and caretakers of the land and the water. You know, real estate markets and gentrification are putting a lot of pressure on the land and the land base people here and impacting our food system in a really big way, for sure. And then, you know, the piece that Donne talked about just about the term food deserts and how there's no healthy food stores without having to drive like an hour for the majority of our rural communities. But then the light we see that only expressed is at the same time, these same communities are the ones that hold our knowledgeable farmers. So I think a good part of our work at NMAA is helping support those farmers so that they can continue or return to farming, even in the face of these major economic and social and environmental pressures. So that they can reclaim their historic place as the primary providers of nourishment and health for their communities. So we aren't dependent on Dollar Store food, or even, you know, the fancy natural stores, we want something even better for the people of New Mexico, which is holding on to our ability to feed ourselves in the way that's always been done here and is still is still visible and tangible. If we continue to protect it.
Blair Franklin 16:36
Wow. Okay. Still just like completely blown away by what y'all are sharing. And just like, yeah, just the nuance and depth that y'all are bringing to the conversation. So thank you so much for giving us the context of what things look like as far as food deserts and food access. And even talking about that sacrifice zone. So that's actually the first time I've heard that terminology. And like thinking, again, about the impact of colonization and imperialism on the land when it comes to New Mexico being a site where new nuclear weapons are developed, and like—significantly, right. But then also talking about the transformation that exists, right, the folks asking for more seeds and keeping seeds alive, intergenerational work that's happening support for farmers. So I guess my next question is a little bit of a blend of two questions, because I think you kind of touched on both of these in your previous response. But if you can expand a little bit more about that transformation piece, and how you've seen your community's relationship to food and to land transformed through this work and healed through this work, and how do you engage folks? What does that look like in practice as you do work with the Acequia Association?
Donne Gonzalez 17:43
Awesome. So I really feel that, again, northern New Mexico is hugely Indigenous and it's really beautiful. Because our people have been here for so long, we're rooted like we're strong, we're strong, no matter what comes our way. But at that, I feel like food, food has always been medicine. That our plants, plants, people see even just weeds outside as a pest. And usually, it's those little pesky weeds that hold so much value, and that have so much medicine for us. I'm huge into natural remedies is what I say but, remedio making for me and this whole idea of just being in touch with the whole natural realm. For me, I've learned that the plants that you need, that the medicine that you need grows closest to your home, which is really cool! And that could be something as simple as a dandelion but, dandelions have so much medicinal power and they're like liver cleansers and they're full of anti-inflammatory stuff, and they're full of vitamins. A lot of people just don't recognize that. I'm making sure that that knowledge in my community is not forgotten, I really love to share with kids, what plants are, what they look like, how to identify, and how to use them properly to heal ourselves. But it's really it's really beautiful to see that the connection is being made still with our natural remedies and with our food being healing agents, you know, again, it's just our, our famous Chimayo chili or red chili. It's like an immune supporter. It's a power booster, it has almost as much vitamin C as an orange. And so that's super cool. Our grandparents knew that when we were sick and when we had a cold to make us the pot of chili and make sure we ate it because it's gonna make us feel better. But again, just that good food and local food and traditional food has so much nutritional value that That's really where we want to be, it's where I hope all of us can be.
Emily Arasim 20:05
Yeah, it's all about all about the relationships. And I think relationships are the key to everything that NMAA does Because I think our major role is really to support and be a place to bring together all of the families and individuals who are continuing these practices and these wisdom ways that Donne talks about to help them see that they're not alone, even when they feel like they are or feel like, you know, they're the only one in their community who's still holding it down in this way. To help them see that that's not true, and that there's so many people within their own communities and communities across the state that are right there with them in the values they hold, and what they want to keep alive. Also help them see that they have relationship with us as an organization who's going to have their back to help interpret and dig through the weeds and push back against some of the policies that make it harder for them to continue this vital work that they do of feeding their communities.
Emily Arasim 21:07
The other piece I would pick up from Donne is that like Donne mentioned, we spend a lot of our time working with youth, she trains on the farm, but the part that I get to be part of is working with youth in schools and after school programs, community programs, talking about the importance of protecting the land, and water and seeds and food ways that are so deeply part of New Mexico culture for generations. The kids that we get to work with most often we watch them just to have a fire lit up in them when they have the chance to talk with their peers in school about these things that are connected so deeply to their family traditions and their lives at home. So I think one way that we're making a big impact in healing our communities relationships to the land is in helping kids and teenagers feel really validated and seen and like their way of life is important and badass. And, you know, we try to instill in them that there's pretty much nothing more valuable than becoming a farmer and a water caretaker like their grandparents might have been, and that this is a worthy and a beautiful life and a career path for them to choose. I feel like we hope that they go back home after our conversations in school and they tell their parents how excited they are about acequia's and about beans and corn seeds. In that exchange with their families, something also lights up in their parents and their grandparents hearts to kind of renew their trust that we're going to be okay and that traditions will survive. That future generations will step up to continue to farm and protect their connection to the land, even in the face of dominant society that really tries to pull our young people away from it. So when we talk about relationships I think that's one of the things that I am most thankful that we get to do with our work. We can't change the past, things seem really insurmountable sometimes, but when we know that our youth are going to be strong and in a way we know what's important, I think that can allow us to hope for a lot better future even when it seems hard to hard to see.
Blair Franklin 21:07
Yeah, and what both of you share I mean, really just lends itself to building community power, right? I mean, like, through all the methods, you share the the relationships and connections through understanding the land and the medicine that's growing just outside of your home. To understanding you're ancestrally like these roles that might not be taught or could be seen as like, deeply valuable, and just bringing that knowledge and wisdom kind of back. I think that's so beautiful. In the context of systems that we are operating in, what are some of the greatest barriers that you experienced to this work? And how do you overcome them?
Donne Gonzalez 23:55
Man, that's a huge question! I feel like one of the biggest barriers right now, you know, might be just like the gentrification and commodification and contamination of our land and water, but I feel like I just keep seeing my people, my gente, my...the natives that belong here being bought out for a very low amount of money because we are poor. They see a couple $1,000 $50,000 and they say, "cool, let me sell you my land". And so they sell land, and then they have to move to the city and their children get displaced and their grandchildren get displaced, and then there's no place for them to come back home to and when there's not home, then there's like lack of— it's just like this feeling of emptiness. I feel and it creates as beautiful as New Mexico is we also have a very high drug rate. We have a lot of drugs in the state, a lot of substance abuse and I felt like this is part of it because so many people don't have homes. They don't have land to claim they don't have pieces of property to work. I feel like once you have land or the people who do have land better yet are healing at a higher rate and at a safer rate.
Donne Gonzalez 25:18
I'm really strong in believing that the Mother Earth always wants to heal us. It's our mother and as all mothers do, they care for us. And they want us to be our best, but we are not giving her our best, and we're not caring for her as best as we can. That comes the climate change, it comes all this crazy weather pattern that nobody knows, it comes. Yeah, it just comes with a lot of yuckiness that we have to figure out. But I just feel like it's like so many different pieces of the puzzle, but they all get tied back together. Like Emily was calling us earlier, you know, we we're not in a very safe place because of how much contamination we have from these national laboratories that are creating really scary weapons. They even in the past couple months, they have accidentally exposed a large amount of the state to radiation through air. And so it's just really crazy to think that we we are sick, because of things like that, you know, cancer, hello, diabetes, heart problems, obesity, like these all come into play because of the lack of the care that the government is not giving to us. Then the government they don't always want to take care of us. I feel like our lands and our people are very poor. And so they've always been implementing, like the idea of commodities or giving us food and this food is it's again, what helps to make us sick, and it is not helping to heal us. So I just have this really big, big hole that I want to fill with, like lots of love and community power and native seeds and all the goodies. But I feel like we're in it for a long time. And we as a state, and people have a lot of healing to do and figure out and I know what it's very possible. But just keeping all that in interplay. Yeah.
Emily Arasim 27:31
This is Emily. I mean, I think everything Donne shared is the heart of it because as we come to recognize more and more like our health, emotionally, and socially and what's going on in the political and economic system are what holds us back from queuing in the land, and then the environmental waves, which is what I would speak to a little bit now, because of course, all the food and farming work in a desert state like New Mexico is water. And, you know, we've always dealt with drought and extreme weather here in New Mexico. But of course, these days, you know, maintaining the food, traditions and foodways of New Mexico requires really reckoning with climate change, but also continuing the work that NMAA and people on the ground have been doing for decades to make sure that the precious vital scarce water that we do have stays in the hands of rural and Indigenous and Hispano communities that have been stewarding it for generations and using it to live in a healthy and a right sized way. So in New Mexico, the law is that there's no new water, which means that you know, if you're building a new housing development, or a new boxstore or a new oil field, you have to prove that you have water rights, and that water has come from existing water in New Mexico. So it's really complex. But in practice, like what this means is that new developments, whether they're good or whether they're polluting industries, giant suburb that no one wants to live in these new developments have to buy or procure water rights. Most often, they're doing that by trying to move them out of our rural farming communities, to their developments in other parts of the state.
Emily Arasim 29:18
They do this with economic pressure and also with claims that the water is not being put to beneficial use. So what we do to overcome that is to help try to ensure that our farmers are supported to keep farming and that our young people know the value of the land and the water so that they can be prepared to say no to these attempts to move water out of the community, which obviously undermines the ecological integrity and cultural integrity of their communities. I think there's also a ton of work to be done with our state officials and political representatives so they know they can't keep talking this kind of two sided language that we see a lot in New Mexico with our political representatives, because on one side, they praise New Mexico's farming and our food traditions and our culture and this land based way of life it's held up as who we are as people from New Mexico, but at the same time, our politicians continue to approve policies and projects that pollute waste and misuse the water and thus directly undermine our ability to keep this whole system alive. So yeah, that's that's what I would bring up as far as barriers and challenges we face and the stuff we've talked about about young people. But I think that's kind of a false barrier, it's, it's perceived as a barrier that our young people aren't interested in continuing this and being farmers, but Donne, and I have the honor of seeing through our work that that's not true. And our young people are passionate and into it. So that last part, at least is a barrier, I feel like we can really work to overcome more quickly and the other things are going to take some time.
Blair Franklin 31:00
Yeah, that point you both are sharing is also making me think a lot about one the way in which land heals, as you mentioned, and really feeling that deep care and nourishment from the earth and holding that I think really close is really important. I think in the in the context of climate change and also makes me think that those that are closest to the land are also going to be the ones that are going to be able to witness to make the recommendations to ensure that we kind of make it through this time. So the power, I think, and responsibility of those roles, I think just are so critical. And I think, you know, as you talk about politicians, and just how folks will say one thing and do something else, I mean, maybe some of the young people end up wanting to take some of those roles, right, and really ensure that the land is protected in ways that it currently isn't being protected by the current folks in power. So yeah, it just seemed like lots of transformation, like are they small scale and just like seeing that ripple out so massively. And so, in that I mean, there might be lots of answers to this, and maybe a few, but how do you measure success and your work?
Donne Gonzalez 32:05
I love that question also! So for me, I felt like every time you know, me and Emily get to hang out with these kids, I felt like just by their smiles, they like she said they straight up, light up, and they want to answer and they want to talk and they want to tell us about what they're doing outside, but their parents or their siblings, and it's just the most beautiful thing to see genuine happiness in our youth in our community. I will also say that I measure just by yummy food, I just felt really blessed and really lucky that I get to grow my own food, and then I get to share my food with my neighbors. And so I know that I have like the best kale salad for dinner. And that makes me happy and that my neighbor gets to have the cucumber salad of his life. I'm like, right on, you're healthy, you're getting hydrated, let's do it. I feel like I'm not big on like, seeing money as a success or being rich, but I felt really rich, just to where I am in life with my family, and that I have land, and that I have a acequia that's running right now. And that I have seeds and how many seeds I have, and such an abundance of variety and flavor and color. And just love like I see so many times just how I share. Just how I share my vegetables creates like a whole friendship and a whole community. You know, within a community, I have neighbors who will call me like at the middle of the night because they see someone in my field. And I'm like, right on! Thank you for keeping an eye out and thank you for calling. I really feel like having pure intention or being a good person is just really successful. And that's what I will say.
Emily Arasim 34:02
I don't think I have anything to add to that Donne's words are beautiful and say it all.
Blair Franklin 34:07
Yeah, that's beautiful. And I'm calling to say ashe just like echoing, acknowledging! Thank you completely in agreement. And I love the reframe also around, let's not talk about success as money, right? Like what does it look like to talk about it and other ways and happiness and health and these other metrics? And so if you had unlimited resources, and you can find resources, however you'd like, what would you do to increase your impact? Well, but those unlimited resources help you do.
Donne Gonzalez 34:33
I love it! I felt like if I had unlimited resources, I would absolutely keep land more local or keep it local. I would keep it for my people. Make sure that everybody has a somewheres to roll in the dirt and feel like they belong. I would absolutely say that seed banks are really important for people and just creating a safe space for everybody but, for just farmers to feel valued to sell goods. In my apprenticeship, I've noticed that I've just been really good at creating a safe space for mount energy. I've had more recently, one of my apprentices just be like, "Yo, if I didn't go through this program with you, I would have never realized how beautiful flowers are, I would have never realized how amazing and how powerful and medicinal they are". And I was just like, whoa, and he just shared with me that before, he'd never felt safe enough, because everybody's just always like, you know, guys don't like flowers. Flowers are for girls and I'm always just like everything is for everybody. Everybody has to try it and be with it and vibe with it. And so I really create the space of open mindedness and safety so that it just can feel good. So that if it's supposed to be yours, it can be yours, then you can harness that. Yeah, that's what I will say, just a safe space.
Emily Arasim 36:05
This is Emily, I wish everyone could have the opportunity to be part of a program like what Donne offers. I guess, firstly, I would continue to articulate that is these young people that we talk about in our communities that we see light up with a passion for farming and being stewards of the land we see that passion is there. But that doesn't change the fact that so many of the young people in our communities are pressured to take jobs, including at the polluting industries that we've mentioned, like the nuclear labs, or places, you know, that are the corporate big box stores that are undermining our families health. That's where a lot of our young people have to go for jobs, because they're told that's the only option to be able to make a living to sustain their families. So if we had unlimited resources I would dream of being able to provide a living just wage for every interested elder farmer in our communities that are knowledge keepers to be able to each host and be able to, again, provide a living wage to young mentees from their own family or from their community to be able to work with them. You know, we're working really hard to make that true to be able to make farming something that our young people can know they can sustain themselves on economically and otherwise. So that would be my dream to see both for our elders to know that they've got support, and their legacy is going to continue and for our young people to know that the future they dream of is actually possible for them.
Blair Franklin 37:38
Wow. And any advice you think you'd give anyone trying to start similar work around protecting water and acequia's around growing food and cultivating seeds and honoring culture? What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone that's wants to think about doing similar work,
Donne Gonzalez 37:56
I would say that my best advice is, if you're already thinking about it, if you're thinking about planting a garden, just to do it, there's no better time. And you can start small or you know, it doesn't have to be big a 10 x 10 area, a 20 x 20 plants things that you're going to eat plants your most favorite and valued crops, and ask your family and ask your neighbors for seeds and for their knowledge. But I'm always just like, do it. Yeah, there is no better time to be a farmer, there's no better time to feed yourself. And it's really an amazing process. I have this theory that all of us, everybody out there has this farming genetic code in them. And we've been pulled away from the land and all we really need to do is like go roll in the dirt and eat some vegetables, and then it's back. And it's almost natural. It's natural, that we know what we have to do to farm and to eat. That's, that's what I'll say. I'll also actually really say that it's just really important I felt like farmers are really the people who are combating climate change. I felt like our soil and just our land are really going to be what's important and what's going to help with the heat and floods and erosions and all this craziness that we that we don't know of right now but we're expecting but farmers we're working the soil and once we have healthy soil, then we have land that isn't going to be so easily eroded or flooded out. So farmers!
Emily Arasim 39:42
Yeah, I think what Donne said connects to what I was thinking of, which is you know, one if you're working on stuff around food and farming in your community to be ready to share with in your community or people you're trying to convince to support you to help them see this bigger picture. That farming It isn't just about growing food that it is how we heal ourselves, it is how we are good people again in right relationship with the Earth. It's how we really start to move back towards a way of living for all of us that is sane. And that is that term, again, right size with the planet. I think I know for me personally, as a young person, understanding that bigger context that it was the answer to so many things gave me the personal motivation to continue even when the work is hard. And I think that can go a long way in getting support from communities or funders, or, you know, the person doesn't want you to do it. Helping them see that bigger picture of what food and farm work really does for us and for our communities can go a long way to making your projects successful. And also, no matter where you are we've talked a lot about how here in New Mexico, we are really fortunate to have a lot of knowledgeable people and traditions for people listening that are in cities, or areas where they feel really far removed from this kind of knowledge and generational continuation. I would just encourage that, even in those situations, if you take the time to look, you will find people in your communities that hold deep knowledge, you'll find efforts already underway that you can partner with and build off of and there's a lot of strength in that in really inventory and all the power that already exists in your community, all the efforts that are already there. That one neighbor that has a cool bean that she's been growing in his backyard for many years. That's the fire that can start a lot.
Blair Franklin 41:42
Beautiful and I want to echo I think, as we come to a close something that Donne has shared, listen to your genetic code roll in the dirt. If you're thinking about a community garden or farm, just do it the time is now. And I think that's just such a beautiful way for us to close. Is there anything else you both want to add? Before we wrap things up?
Donne Gonzalez 42:03
I will just add, you know that I'm very thankful for this opportunity. I'm sending my big love to you for hosting us and big love to anybody who's listening. But really that farmers are changing the world and that we need to keep growing farmers and just to support your local farmers market. Support your local farmers and your homies who are growing goods. But the change yeah, the change is here and the change is now and so we really need to step it up and start eating what's good for us and what's local and what's unique. Thank you.
Emily Arasim 42:41
Thank you, Praxis!
Blair Franklin 42:43
Thank you both so much! This was so so great. Yes, thanks so much y'all we appreciate you listening and listening to the series as it continues, appreciate it.
Podcast Outro 42:57
Thank you for listening to this episode of In Praxis. We hope you all enjoyed it make sure to visit our website, www.the praxisproject.org where you can check out additional episodes with other guests, as well as learn more about our work.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
community, land, people, new mexico, food, farmers, feel, seeds, farming, heal, farm, support, power, traditions, family