Oct. 24 -- SOMBRILLO -- Jim Fischer holds up an old photograph of his extended family.
"He got run over by a tractor and broke his leg," Fischer said of one of his relatives.
"He got his lungs [impacted] by silo gas," he said of another.
"It's a hard life," said Fischer, who farmed for 40 years in Wisconsin and now oversees some 22,000 feet of indoor vegetable production at the nonprofit Khalsa Family Farms in the Española Valley. Some of that produce ends up at the Santa Fe Farmers Market each week.
After so many years in the business, Fischer appreciates the constant need for innovation, the endless seasonal contingencies and the agricultural research he conducts to cultivate vegetables year-round at Khalsa Farms using organic methods. He's also developed a kind of sixth sense for growing things.
"I can read plants," he said. "I can look at them and tell what's wrong with them."
Khalsa Farms, The Vagabond Farmers and Cañada Farms were recognized Thursday evening as 2024 Farmer All-Stars, an award from the Santa Fe Farmers Market Institute to highlights local growers who "work every day to strengthen the community through sustainable farming practices," according to an emailed description.
The Farmer All-Star Awards is a way the institute acknowledges the hard work of the vendors who are the driving force behind the popular weekend market in the Railyard, where locals and tourists shop for locally grown food.
The celebration Thursday night at the market's pavilion on Paseo de Peralta included live music, local food catered by Mas Chile, and local wine and beer. Tickets to the event were sold for $100.
"These All Stars serve as models of sustainability and active engagement in the local food economy. Their efforts ensure that fresh, locally grown food remains accessible while preserving our community's heritage," Manny Encinas, executive director of the Farmers Market, said in a news release.
The Vagabond Farmers
Osiris Nasnan raises vegetables on about 2 rented acres in the La Puebla area, noting land is hard to come by and expensive in Northern New Mexico. He calls his business The Vagabond Farmers.
"Really, it's the seasonality of farming that keeps me going. Working with the seasons, it keeps me grounded in some ways," said Nasnan, who is currently tending rows of winter squash, eggplant and broccoli, some nestled under a white row cover to ward off frost.
"I've been out here since 2020, so four years, and each winter has been warmer than the last," Nasnan said.
Assuring a steady supply of water is a farmer's biggest challenge in a region prone to wild swings of weather. This year, a headgate that helps route water to his vegetables blew out a couple of times.
"Water is kind of the seasonal hardship," Nasnan said. "Either there's too much of it with crazy monsoons or hail, or too little, with a drought."
At one of the La Puebla sites, he noted, there is no well so it's all acequia-run.
"Our infrastructure, it's steeped in tradition," he said.
The Vagabond Farmers is being recognized for having its feet firmly planted in the farming community of Northern New Mexico.
"As innovative diversified vegetable farmers, they are a voice to be heard with respect to the challenges of beginning agrarians and prioritize connecting with consumers and peers alike," an email from the Santa Fe Farmers Market Institute read.
Nasnan said the market is the farm's main sales outlet, although he also sells regularly to restaurants, including Nosa Restaurant and Inn, Palace Prime Santa Fe and Tender Fire Kitchen. Each year, Nasnan said, he tries to find a couple of seasonal specialities -- something that is difficult to find in a grocery store, such as heirloom Italian tomatoes and fava beans.
Cañada Farms
Joel González, owner of Cañada Farms, said he is proud to own 5 acres north of Española in the Velarde area, where he sells vegetables to elderly people at half price.
González immigrated from Mexico about 20 years ago and has been selling produce at the Santa Fe Farmers Market for at least 13 years. His farm -- acequia-irrigated and close to water -- is now beginning to grow fruit trees.
"The importance of having a farm and having crops is having food. One day I think that, if there are no farms, we're just going to be eating synthetic food and fake food," said González, who spoke to The New Mexican in a telephone interview through an interpreter.
Cañada Farms and González are being recognized for embracing the challenges of being a small-acreage farm by creating abundance through soil health improvement, building in seasonal extension with a greenhouse and minimizing food waste through partnerships to create value-added products.
González has dedicated about 20 years of his life to agriculture.
"When I migrated from over there, it was the job that I found, so I found it interesting," said González.
Khalsa Farms
The farm Fischer manages south of Española offers about 35 vegetable products, from edible flowers to slicing tomatoes. By growing in heated greenhouses, Khalsa Farms manages to produce year-round.
The farm, which now has seven full-time employees, began building an 8,600 square foot greenhouse in 2018 with an underground "climate battery" -- a ground-to-air heating system consisting of tubes that circulate air beneath the soil surface.
Since then, three grow tunnels have also been added to afford the vegetables protection as weather fluctuates by season.
Sirivishnu Khalsa, president of the certified naturally grown farm, walked through the operation's greenhouse Wednesday. In the farm's office, sheets of paper attached to a whiteboard listed shipment plans to local farmers markets.
"Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays are big harvesting days here," Khalsa said.
Each of those three days, Khalsa Farms moves from 400 to 500 pounds of produce, Khalsa said, pointing out rows of endive.
The farm is being highlighted by the Santa Fe Farmers Market Institute for revitalizing neglected land using innovative techniques like climate-regulating greenhouses and grow tunnels to cultivate non-GMO produce year-round, with programs that focus on food security and strengthening food systems and access in Northern New Mexico. Khalsa Farms is situated on land that was formerly an apple orchard.
The soil on the property is high in pH, requiring constant tweaks to the farm's fertilization habits. It's challenges like this that keep Shenoah Dalziel, the farm's harvest manager, interested.
"It's a challenge, but it's a fun challenge to have, especially working with Jim and Sirivishnu. They're both love-the-challenge type of people," she said.