HELGA GARCIA-GARZA DIDN’T KNOW what to think when representatives of the James Beard Foundation called. “I thought that was for people doing magic with food,” says Garcia-Garza, executive director of the Agri-Cultura Network. While the longtime resident of Albuquerque’s South Valley had previously recommended New Mexican chefs for the honor, she never expected to be recognized for her work in food security and access with a James Beard Leadership Award. Since Garcia-Garza founded the Agri-Cultura Network in 2009, the organization has served up more than $2 million in organic, local, healthy foods by connecting New Mexico farmers with hospitals, schools, and low-income families. Along the way, she has helped farmers become more ecologically and economically resilient, worked with policymakers to support New Mexico’s food sovereignty, and even pushed Dollar General to stock healthier options.
I’m the daughter of an activist, Margarita Velasquez Garcia. When she started, I was four years old. I remember holding on to her skirt, and she would walk down the street talking to the neighbors.
She organized them like that, block by block.
I am an Indigenous woman, Azteca Chichimeca. Even now, we still hold our ceremonial agricultural calendar, which has been a guiding light and anchor for me.
I was a farmer for 20 years in southern Texas and central Mexico, where farming was not an economic driver, it was survival.
We started this work in Albuquerque because we realized we were losing the last generation of traditional farmers. We didn’t want to lose the knowledge, land, or water rights needed to keep small-scale farms in New Mexico.
Our first challenge was learning how to navigate procurement requirements for schools. It was difficult, but it was the spark that helped us grow from a theory to feeding our community.
We needed to find a way for our community to afford our good food without it jeopardizing the farmers’ hard-earned income. That’s when we started the La Cosecha Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, where families in need can get a subsidized share of local produce for less than $10 per week.
We’ve grown a lot since then, expanding from fresh produce into things like garlic powder, cornmeal, jam, even baby food.
Our goal is for New Mexico to become a sustainable food state and feed ourselves. We know we have the infrastructure to do that.
What I’ve learned is that food-systems work is a balancing act. As we ask for more support at the state and local level to invest in local production, we also have to make sure that the farmers have the capacity to meet those markets.
Building the community and capacity of local farmers is an important part of our work, especially at Raíces Sagradas (Sacred Roots), the South Valley farm where we host the Grow the Growers program.
There was no model for us to follow. We made it through a lot of lean years because each year, as hard as it was, we were able to show that we were an effective collective of farmers working together to feed our community.
I have grand-children, and I always try to teach them to look for healthy solutions—like our activism to pressure Dollar General to remove toxic products and stock fresh food.
What anchors me more than anything is my ceremonial life. I’ve been a Sun Dancer for 34 years [at the Three Affiliated Tribes in Twin Butte, North Dakota]. I’ve danced all day long without food or water. I’ve prayed, asking, Why am I suffering this way?
The last time I had to question that, what came to me was, This is what the Earth is going through. That elevated my understanding of why we do what we do.