Allison Merrell ’15 found the conference inspirational and said “The amount of effort and knowledge that has to go into all aspects of farming is unimaginable, and something that can’t very well be taught in ways other than experience. Seeing the young farmers so passionate about what they do was very exciting to me.”
Riley Mullany ’14 learned about the challenges of whether or not a farmer should till the soil. “The presenter showed us data about different farms she had operated, the amount of tilling she had done on each, and the chemical properties of the soil (and, of course, the crop yield). She had success with a rotation of crops and grazing, combined with a year-long cover crop, in order to prevent erosion of topsoil. Additionally, the rows of her farms were planted with red clover or other plants in order to provide ‘living mulch’ and give shade to the soil to reduce evaporation. With this method, she also kept unwanted weeds out of the system, since the clover was over-seeded and kept the soil in shade. Minimal tilling involved only spading or rototilling the crop rows once, and this seemed to give optimal results in her experience.”
Maggie McWethy ’15 discovered that water rights in New Mexico are very contentious. “In one of the seminars I attended, I attempted to learn about water rights. I only heard about five minutes of the actual presentation before city officials and landowners broke out into a heated debate. The conflict was about how much water the farmers were allowed to use year-round. One landowner posed the question, claiming that he only used one-tenth of his allotted water during the growing season, but saying that he needed water in the winter. The speakers then told him that he could not use more water in the winter to make up for what he did not use in the summer and that the city would continue to audit his water use and sue if he went off his allotted amount. Other farmers were also arguing that they felt as if they had to use up water in order to keep their water rights.”
