Going with the grain
New Mexico organic wheat cooperative
provides lift to farmers, rural economy
By Catherine Merlo
very day, 200 to 300 customers
line up at the
Cloud Cliff Bakery and
Café in Santa Fe, N.M.
They come to dine on
the popular eatery’s cinnamon rolls,
the roasted ancho chile rellenos, the
strong coffee. But mostly they come
for the bread.
The crunchy sourdough loaves are
made by hand and baked daily on a
stone hearth, giving the bread a flavor
similar to that cooked in a wood-fired
oven. Known as artisan bread, the
dough is made from water, salt, yeast
and a special organic wheat flour.
Cloud Cliff’s specialty is “Pan Nativo,”
Spanish for native bread.
Pan Nativo has been Cloud Cliff’s
best-selling product for several years,
accounting for up to half of Cloud
Cliff’s wholesale income. The flour it’s
made from is high in protein and
gluten, and it comes from one place
only: the organic wheat fields of the
Sangre de Cristo Agricultural
Producers Cooperative.
Co-op helps boost rural incomes
One hundred miles north of Santa
Fe, along the New Mexico-Colorado
border, members of the Sangre de
Cristo Agricultural Producers
Cooperative have just planted their
11th grain crop. From September’s
expected harvest, they hope to produce
a record crop of more than 400,000
pounds of organic wheat, which will be
milled into flour and sold to local bakeries
and restaurants like Cloud Cliff.
The co-op has come a long way
since it was formed in 1995 with help
from New Mexico State University
and the New Mexico Department of
Agriculture. Organized to improve
economics and reintroduce grain production
in the sparsely populated
Costilla Valley, the co-op has done
more than revive local wheat farming.
It has boosted incomes and hope in
rural Taos County, where the median
household income is less than $27,000
per year and nearly 21 percent of the
population lives below the poverty
line.
Unlike the co-op’s early years, when
members irrigated their fields from
ditch systems (or acequias), the nine
current co-op members now water
most of their fields with a center pivot.
They’ve also learned to use modern
tractors and combines, with assistance
from Costilla and Questa.
Flour mill adds value to crop
The co-op has also just purchased
its own whole-wheat flour mill (albeit
used). Now, instead of paying to have
someone else mill their wheat, they
add value to their crop by grinding and
bagging it themselves. They’ve seen
production rise from 60,000 pounds
the first year, and watched their co-op’s
revenues climb to $100,000 last year.
But what hasn’t changed is the coop’s
commitment to organic, chemicalfree,
wheat production. It’s proved to
be a bonanza for the tiny co-op. Each
month, it sells 18,000 pounds of
organic wheat flour, including 10,000
pounds to Cloud Cliff, its best customer.
“We chose to produce and sell an
organic product because that’s what’s
happening all through this area,” says
co-op president Gonzalo Gallegos,
who farms 40 of the co-op’s 120 acres
near Questa. “Much of this land had
been fallow for so long, and people
had never used chemicals on it. Our
water comes directly from the mountains.
What better place could there be
to grow organic?”
By offering a locally grown organic
product, the co-op enjoys a profitable
niche market. Organic wheat here sells
for 11.6 cents a pound, compared with
about 3.3 cents a pound for conventionally
grown wheat. The co-op mills
all of its wheat into organic flour,
which is sold to New Mexico customers
at 30 cents a pound. After
deducting production, operating and
transportation expenses, co-op members
earn a net profit of 16.6 cents a
pound for their organic wheat flour.
“That’s more than five times the
amount conventional growers earn
selling wheat on the open market,”
says Del Jimenez, agricultural specialist
for New Mexico University’s
Cooperative Extension Service.
Jimenez has worked with the co-op,
named after the nearby Sangre de
Cristo Mountains, from its beginning.
“We never thought we’d get this far,”
he says.
“Demand for our flour is growing,
which is why we’re working so hard to
increase our production,” Gallegos
says.
Proud of their product
Like many locals,
Gallegos, 54, holds two
to three jobs to support
his family. He has seasonal
work as a meat-cutter, high school
football coach and physical education
instructor. Like other locals, he could
have left for better-paying jobs in Santa
Fe, Albuquerque, Los Alamos or
Denver. But he stayed, and Sangre de
Cristo Agricultural Producers Cooperative
has rewarded him in ways he
never imagined.
“This experience has meant quite a
bit to me,” says Gallegos, once an
inexperienced farmer. “It’s put food on
people’s tables, but it’s also the quality
of our product that I like. We got people
together. And it’s taught me a lot
about running a business.”
Through the Sangre de Cristo
Agricultural Producers Cooperative,
members have added roughly $12,000
extra to their individual yearly incomes.
Cloud Cliff produces 8,000 to
9,000 loaves of its Pan Nativo each
month, which it sells for a wholesale
price of up to $3 a loaf to natural food
stores and other retailers in northern
New Mexico. Cloud Cliff owner
Willem Malten thinks there’s room for
growth in the Sangre de Cristo
Agricultural Producers Co-op.
“It’s taken them a long time to get
where they are now,” Malten says. “It’s
been quite a learning curve for them.
Now, they’re taking a harder look at it
as a business.”
Malten has offered ideas to the coop:
figure out a way to sell organic
wheat berries; think about growing different
varieties of wheat, such as spelt,
amaranth or quinoa; look into the use
of straw for the region’s popular strawbale
housing; consider growing rotational
crops.
“They’re still trying to find their
bearings,” Malten says. “But I’m glad
they’re still motivated to remain in
business. That, in itself, is a success.”
Reviving northern N.M. ag
Jimenez would like to see the co-op
eventually produce its own unique product,
probably bread. “It would be ideal
to have an integrated system,” he says.
The co-op has brought more than a
high price for the locally grown organic
wheat. It’s revived farming in northern
New Mexico, a major wheat-growing
area before World War II. It’s improved
incomes and added jobs here.
“The co-op has done wonders for
the community,” says Jimenez. “Every
dollar that comes into northern New
Mexico is turned over seven times in
the community.”
The co-op has received significant
financial support, Jimenez says. The
New Mexico Legislature has given
some $50,000 in funding over the
years to help the co-op operate.
Expertise has not only been provided
by Jimenez, but also by the New
Mexico Department of Agriculture
through staffer Craig Maple.
Even so, the co-op has had its share
of troubles, Jimenez admits. “Our
biggest challenge is getting cooperation
within the group to follow the
same procedures and growing techniques,”
he says. “We have had some
leadership problems and the growing
pains every group goes through.”
Drought is a regular visitor to the
area, making water a valuable, precious
resource. “We’ve been hit hard by
drought three out of the last 10 years,”
says Jimenez.
For Gallegos, marketing the coop’s
product and name has been one
of the hard parts. But he is taking a
business management class and
preparing to help draft a business plan
for the co-op “to turn this into a real
business,” he says. “It may take a couple
of years, but we are going to
expand.”
Organic food sales growing at ‘breathtaking’ speed
New Mexico’s wheat growers are not alone in seizing
opportunity in the organic foods market. Burgeoning
consumer interest in organically grown foods has
not only opened new markets for farmers, but is transforming
the organic foods industry.
“Organic foods have penetrated conventional
supermarkets with breathtaking speed since the late
1990s,” says Catherine Greene, agricultural economist
with USDA’s Economic Research Service. “Sales have
grown by 17-20 percent per year since 1997.”
Like the members of the Sangre de Cristo Agricultural
Producers Cooperative, many small organic farmers
also are selling directly to high-end restaurants,
she adds.
“Retail sales of organic foods totaled an estimated
$10.4 billion in the United States in 2003,” Greene says,
citing the Nutrition Business Journal, a nutrition industry
publication.
That’s almost three times as much as the $3.6 billion
sold in 1997.
Produce remains the biggest category of organic
retail sales. Soy beverage and organic dairy products
(see page 15) have been among the fastest-growing
segments.
“The increasing availability in conventional supermarket
channels has played a major role in expanding
organic food sales,” Greene says.
Through the 1990s, natural foods stores were the
dominant venue for purchasing organic foods. “Today,
conventional supermarkets sell as much organic product
as the natural foods sector,” says Greene.
Direct marketing of organic produce is still a vibrant
segment of organic foods distribution, she adds.
“Organic food remains a bright spot of opportunity
for farmers,” says Greene.
For more information, visit:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/organic/.
Catherine Merlo
