NMSU Extension Hosts National Small Farm Conference

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New Mexico State University's Cooperative Extension Service will host the National Small Farm Conference in Albuquerque Sept. 17-20. Anna María Pérez-Wright has more.

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New Mexico will host a conference September 17th through 20th to help agricultural educators, managers and producers improve services and assistance to small farms. About 800 participants from across the country will attend the Third National Small Farm Conference hosted by New Mexico State University's Cooperative Extension Service. Conference director Edmund Gomez with Extension's Rural Agricultural Improvement and Public Affairs Project says it's an honor and an opportunity to showcase New Mexico's long agricultural roots.

"We have farms, especially with the Pueblos, that have been continuous for the last 800 years. We have probably the oldest farms in the continental United States, and I think that's something to be very proud of because we can show that farming has been a tradition and a way of life for those of us that have chosen to live here."

The National Commission on Small Farms defines small farms as those that are family run, operated and owned and with gross income under 250-thousand dollars a year. Gomez says ninety-four percent of New Mexico's 15-thousand farms are small farms. More than half of those earn less than 10-thousand dollars a year.

"It's very important that we retain our small farms and ranches if we would like to continue providing a rural atmosphere, rural ethics and basically a good way of raising our children."

U-S Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Lou Gallegos, a native New Mexican, is the keynote speaker for the conference. For information, call Gomez at (505) 852-2668. For N-M-S-U's College of Agriculture and Home Economics, I'm Anna María Pérez-Wright.