As grocery store’s shelves emptied during COVID it suddenly highlighted New Mexico’s growing dependence on out of state corporate agriculture for food. For decades there has been widespread consolidation of farms and a recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows there were 200,000 fewer farms in 2022 than in 2007.
In an effort to compete with the corporate food chain, Polk Family Farms, located in the East Mountains on Highway 14 in Cedar Crest, practices sustainable farming and is working with other local farms in a loose knit cooperative.
“Rural America is facing serious challenges; it just doesn’t know it yet,” Zach Withers, co-owner of Polk Family Farms tells The Independent. “People who think food comes from the store and water comes from a pipe are in for some very rude awakenings.”
Withers and his brother Eathan chose to take over their family farm and pursue a sustainable route to make it a long-term success. They use alternative feed resources to feed their heritage hog farrow-to-finish operations that averages 100 to 200 hogs living on their farm each year.
The farm diverts close to 2 million pounds a year in fruits and vegetables from the landfill for feed which helps keep methane levels down. They also collect all of the byproducts from local breweries, distilleries and a flour mill for their feed and make their own compost to replenish the land.
“The major challenge for us over the last eight years has been maintaining market access,” Withers says. “We have to jump through processing regulations that heavily favor large multinational corporations with plants that slaughter 40,000 hogs a day.”
For several years they hauled their hogs to Southern Colorado for slaughter and processing. The brothers ultimately opted to go with a local slaughter house, learn how to butcher and process their animals themselves and sell them through their own butcher shop, Polk’s Folly.
“We opened Polk’s Folly two days before the first COVID shut down. Now we have hundreds of local farms and ranches that are selling products out of the shop,” Withers says. “It’s kind of like a cooperative. There’s no lack of demand for good local food. We have the problem of keeping up with demand.”
Withers says to continue to be viable their store operation needs to grow a little bigger. They need to purchase a warehouse and have been having difficulty getting permits for access to the commercial water standpipe that is immediately adjacent to the building. Withers says it’s an issue related to a replat that was filed.
“What I see happening in my community is the privatization and commodification of water.” Withers says. “Instead of trying to conserve water, we’re trying to race to the bottom and be in the best position to make money off of it. We need to produce food in a way to maintain the viability of our aquifer system so that future generations have some sort of fallback for times of extreme drought.”
“Long term food security and dwindling water is what we should be paying more attention to,” Withers contends. “It’s not just about finding a way to make a singular business work, but about addressing the multiple, being part of a solution for the crisis facing our communities.”