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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Zuni High revives traditional farming
  • Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:28:09 -0600


Zuni High revives traditional farming
Published : Friday, 18 Sep 2009, 5:48 PM MDT
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/local_guide/grow_local/growlocal_krqe_zuni_pueblo_high_revives_traditional_farming_200909181745
* Christina M. Pheley, NMSU News Bureau

ZUNI PUEBLO, N.M. (KRQE) - Zuni High School students who have just begun
working to revitalize traditional farming practices took home four ribbons in
the horticulture and honey competitions at the New Mexico State Fair.

The prizes, two 1st-place and two 3rd-place ribbons, are being called in a
major triumph because this was the project's first year for the horticulture
students and their science teacher, William Becker.

The students’ state fair entries included produce from the horticulture
class’s “waffle gardens,” a traditional Zuni method of garden construction
consisting of a series of parallel, square or rectangular depressions dug
into the ground, creating a waffle-like pattern that maximizes use of water.
At the fair, the produce is displayed in student-made traditional Zuni
pottery pieces. The students also entered honey collected from the class’s
two beehives.

Becker’s horticulture class is part of a larger collaborative effort
involving New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension Service, the
New Mexico Department of Education Rural Education Division, two other
schools--Twin Buttes High School and Zuni Middle School--and the larger Zuni
community.


Project hopes to boost Zuni economy


“A major goal of the Traditional Zuni Agriculture Revitalization Project is
to stimulate the local Zuni economy by working through the Zuni public
schools to re-introduce traditional Zuni agricultural practices, which have
been declining in use since the early 1900s,” explained Michael Patrick, an
Extension Service community resource and economic development specialist,
credited with bringing together the project’s many partners.

Lee Watts, Extension agent with the Zuni Reservation Extension office, is
hopeful that getting kids involved in their agricultural heritage will
eventually help increase the number of Zuni adults engaged in agriculture,
which has declined from 30 percent a century ago to only 1.5 percent today.

“This project is not only an economic development tool,” Watts said. “It is
also helping tie Zuni youth back to their cultural heritage by actively
engaging them in horticulture and other ag-related classes, where they learn
about traditional farming practices more than a thousand years old. Using
traditional Zuni farming practices, the students are actually going out and
building waffle gardens and planting fruit orchards, in many cases using
native seeds handed down through generations of Zuni farmers.”

The project also envisions marketing traditionally grown Zuni produce,
fruits, poultry and honey to generate income for the community.

Another goal is to make locally grown traditional Zuni fruits and vegetables
readily available again in the community. As consumption of these traditional
foods has declined among the Zuni in the last few decades, diet-related
conditions like obesity, diabetes and heart disease have increased, Patrick
said.



State funding seeded project


In spring 2009, the project received $10,000 from a special state legislative
appropriation designated for rural revitalization and $1,000 from the New
Mexico State Parks Outdoor Education Program, said James Holloway, PED
assistant secretary, Rural Education Division, who was instrumental in
getting the funds allocated for the traditional Zuni agriculture
revitalization project.

“This project is connected to the New Mexico Rural Revitalization Initiative,
a larger effort we have in 27 school districts that are engaged in some type
of improvement activities that we call ‘revitalization,’ and we work closely
with NMSU Extension and Dr. Michael Patrick in particular, on these
projects,” Holloway explained.

“The projects do three things: revitalize interest in school-community
partnerships, help instill pride and citizenship among students who get to
give back to their communities, and they provide entrepreneurial activities
that students might be able to make a living with some day,” he said.

“Each community decides what they want to do. We felt the Zuni traditional ag
project met the Rural Revitalization Initiative’s requirements,” he said.

“And they are getting the parents involved. Here you have an opportunity for
kids and adults in a community to work together to bring back cultural
practices that have been gone for a hundred years,” Holloway explained.

“You’ve got agriculture, you’ve got Zuni history, you’ve got all those skills
taught in the classroom, and they all come together in those little garden
plots in the ground, in the waffle gardens at the schools in Zuni.

“We just felt that if we could help those kids, that would be a good thing,”
he said.


Students honor Santa Fe supporters


And on Wednesday, a grateful Becker, with a contingent of his Zuni High
School horticulture class students, traveled to Santa Fe to personally thank
Holloway and the Rural Education Division for their financial support and for
the help provided by Brenda Lyle-Gray, Rural Education Bureau education
administrator, who works closely

with students in the Zuni schools on this and other projects.

As a gesture of their gratitude, the students presented Holloway and his
staff with produce from the horticulture class waffle gardens, arranged in
student-made, traditional Zuni pottery pieces, along with jars of honey
collected from the class beehives.

“Going to Santa Fe to thank Dr. Holloway and his department was really
important for us to do. It was a great experience,” said Samantha Tsatie,
Zuni High School horticulture student.

At the state fair, the class won 1st place for their comb honey entry and
their green onion entry. They won 3rd place for their junior garden display
and for their filtered honey entry.

“I think the entire community of Zuni will be proud of what our students have
achieved,” Becker said. “Winning at the state fair in our first year
demonstrates that we can put out a quality product, not just any product.
We’ll be back next year and will be entering in more categories.”

Becker plans for the horticulture course to be completely self-funding with
revenue from the class’s beehives, which, with the addition of more hives in
the coming year, are expected to bring in as much as $5,000 a year.

The Zuni High School horticulture class state fair entries can be seen in the
agricultural products entry section of the Agriculture Building at the New
Mexico State Fair through Sept. 27.





  • [Livingontheland] Zuni High revives traditional farming, Tradingpost, 09/19/2009

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