By Rose Chavez | Food System/Food Equity Coalition
Healthy Archuleta, a local nonprofit in Archuleta County also known as the Food Coalition, continues to celebrate the local food heroes that make up the food system in Archuleta County and the surrounding southwest region.
These individuals uniquely contribute to the community’s vision for a sustainable, health promoting and equitable local food system so that everyone has access to affordable nutritious foods.
The effort to capture the profiles of these integral community members was initiated as part of the Archuleta Food System Summit that took place April 9. Today, we would like to feature Roger Candelária of Ranchito Alegre. The following is a narrative that Roger shared with us:
“Ranchito Alegre, roughly translated, meaning ‘Joyous Homestead’ a fount of joy for our family, our crew, neighbors and customers. ‘Inspired by Nature and Powered by the Sun,’ Ranchito Alegre works to naturally generate healthy living soil to feed healthy active local people. Over past centuries, our ancestors settled in New Mexico and southern Colorado, built homes of adobe and raised sheep, cattle, goats, poultry, hay and cultivated vegetable gardens. Now, we apply newly understood scientific principles regarding the soil biome and its relation to human health to organically produced foods for our own local community. This means that all of our farm animals are raised, pastured and fed without the use of antibiotics or synthetic growth hormones. It is our goal to keep your farm foods raised as nature intended. It is no coincidence that our initials, RA also stand for Regenerative Agriculture.
“This growing season, we face two big challenges. First, busy and informed consumers want to gain access to safe and ethical foods they can eat with confidence. That means we have to ramp up and diversify our production and do so without any compromise in quality. Second, we want to make it even more convenient for our loyal past and our new customers to order and receive freshly harvested delicious foods for their families. To meet the first challenge, we are joining hands with other regenerative farmers and growing more. ... To make it easier and more convenient for residents and visitors to get Ranchito Alegre products, we are streamlining our online ordering system and soon will open a completely new roadside farm stand.”
For questions, please contact us at fsfearchuleta@gmail.org or(401) 371-3227. To donate to support the work of Healthy Archuleta, please visit our website: https://www.foodcoalition4archuleta.org/donate.html.
