SeedBroadcasting from the Albuquerque Community Day.

Peanut seeds shared from Farmer Lack Lopez West and Peas and Hominy Farm

How do we sustain diverse and meaningful food traditions in the face of climate change and with all the challenges we face on a daily basis?

This question seemed ripe during the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History Community Day celebrating Fathers and local food culture on Sunday June 21. It was Summers Solstice, the longest day of the year, and Father’s Day too. It was also well over 100 degrees and everyone was either wilting in the radiant glory of the heat or scurrying towards interior spaces of artificial cool to relax and go gaga over the high heels exhibit at the museum before scurrying off to yet another cool sexy space.

MSSBS out in front of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History

The day was hot and so was the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station and all the seeds that we share with folks. So seeds, people, and all had to bolster some resilience to be out celebrating the seeds, the farmers, the food, and the fathers that nourish us with their strength and care.

The event also included local chefs preparing gourmet items on site and the Vecinos Artists Collective engaging people in their project, IF I WERE A SEED… where they ask folks to visualize being a seed and growing the change they want to be through making an individualized seed mural. They were also collecting recipes on site and typing them out on an old typewriter.

Vecinos Artist Collective, If I were a seed...

Vecinos Artist Collective, If I were a seed... mural by anonymous

Paul Lopéz Jr. who is part of the Vecinos Artist Collective also shared a Seed Story with us. Check it out here:

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/paul-lopez-jr-shares-his-story-about-the-buena-tierra-farm-project

Drawing corn pictures

Posting peanut pictures

Several kids came by to draw seed stories as they were making a circuit, running through the water fountain to cool off then back around to the Broadcasting Station. They spent time drawing their favorite seeds and also drawing out the process of growing a seed into its traditional food way.

Peanuts and corn became the favorite seeds of the day and someone asked what the difference was between a peanut that is eaten and a seed of a peanut that is planted. They are the same. And this unites us in the remembering that the foods we eat, the daily blessings of the seed is also the seed that renews our local traditions on the land, in our kitchens, and with our families and communities.

The peanuts came from local Albuquerque farmer, Jack Lopez West, from Peas and Hominy Farm, who as a new father, came by with his family to share popcorn, peanuts, and carrot seeds and also record a seed story about his mentor from South Carolina who was the father of many plant children. Jack also offered up wisdom for starting a new local tradition, growing sweet potatoes as a staple food crop to replace energy intensive grains.

You can listen to Jack’s Seed Story here:

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/farmer-jack-lopez-west-shares-a-seed-story-about-learning-the-art-of-the-seed

SeedBroadcasting from Celebración de Culturas Familia Y Tradiciones

Seed Story drawings inside the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station

On June 13, 2015 SeedBroadcast participated in the Celebración de Culturas Familia Y Tradiciones in the high mountains of Northern New Mexico. This was the first annual weekend event bringing together local artisans, traditional crafts, storytelling, presentations, demonstrations, and great food to celebrate the genius of place across the Peñasco valley. The event as a whole took place in the villages of Rio Lucio, Peñasco, Vadito, Rodarte, Llano de la Yegua, Llano de San Juan Nepomuceno, Chamisal, and Las Trampas. In each of these villages people opened their houses and shops to share their deep creative knowledge and historic rural practices.

Homemade tortilla demonstration and the best tortillas hot off the grill!

Visitors came from all over the region and many old timers came from far away to see friends and family. All weekend long people drove from site to site learning about fiber arts, ceramics, making posole and other traditional foods, wood crafts and furniture, retablo painting, herbs, and lots more. Here is a link the Celebración de Culturas web: http://www.penasconm.org

SeedBroadcast helper, Chloe Maize, helped several young folks make their own Seed Story drawings

Natalie Lopez invited us to park the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station out in front of her small business, La Jicarita Harvest and old family adobe home where she serves up authentic Northern New Mexican food including the notorious chicharrón burrito with mounds of green chile. During the morning we watched as Ivan Rodriguez cooked chicharrónes over a small wood fire.

Ivan stirs the chicharónnes and talks about matanzas

Boiling chicharónnes

Chicharónnes are pork rinds that are boiled and then fried in their own fat. It takes much patience, time, and many stories to properly prepare chicharónnes . Here is Ivan’s Seed Story….. and of course the chicharónnes were perfect!

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/ivan-rodriquez-shares-his-seed-stories


During the day several storms passed through bringing blessings of rain for local crops but putting a damper on visitors to the Broadcast Station. Nevertheless, the event continued throughout the intermittent rain and we met several local farmers and gardeners who climbed aboard the van to talk seed. One young lady talked about revitalizing the old seeds by getting all the local families together to bring out their seeds, tell their stories, and cultivate an intergenerational effort to grow the seeds once more. She wondered how to do this?

The local chico corn is no exception and it was spoken of several times over the day as one of the most valued seeds, food, and traditions. Known as maiz de concho, this white flint variety is used to make posole and chicos which are staple foods for regional communities throughout the winter. Chicos are made by putting fresh ears of corn, husks and all, into an horno, roasting overnight, and then drying for storage. An horno is a large adobe oven that is pre-heated with firewood and retains heat overnight and throughout the next day. It is often used to make chicos, bake bread, and roast meat.

Horno building demonstration

Natalie’s husband, Roy, was demonstrating how to build an horno on site, right out in front of La Jicarita Harvest. He already had the concrete pad prepared and spent the entire day laying out the first course of adobe bricks and mudding them together. Once it is done they will use it to make their chicos and bake bread.

At the end of the day Roy sang us a seed song about keeping the seeds alive with families and communities. Here it is:

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/roy-lopez-sings-seeds-from-celebracion-de-culturas-penasco-new-mexico


Thanks to all we met at the Celebratión de Culturas keeping the seeds alive and growing!

SeedBroadcasting at UrbanRefuge A.R.T.S.

SeedBroadcast will be at the UrbanRefuge A.R.T.S. Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refugeat to celebrate and record stories about South Valley agri-Culture.

Join us for a day broadcasting, share stories and seeds.

Saturday July 11, 2015 from 10am - 3pm
Valle de Oro Wildlife Refuge
7851 2nd St SW
Albuquerque, NM

A.R.T.S.
Artistic Expressions
Recycling/Repurposing
Transportation Activities
Storytelling/Seed Projects

Here is a link to more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/760893424032286/

Bees + Seeds: Time of Action and Solidarity for Food Justice.

March against Monsanto

In this time of major shifts in our world around the injustices of access to healthy food and seeds there is such a need for action. We cannot allow these inequalities to continue and for major corporations to govern and determine the rights to own and distribute our seeds. This is a human right and has been part of our traditional agricultural system since we humans started our relationship to seeds and plants. This is a relationship based on reciprocity and without the balance and without the understanding that we are not the controllers we are heading to a disastrous tipping point.

Saturday May 23rd 2015 was a global day of solidarity and action sponsored by  March Against Monsanto and GMO- Free New Mexico .
Groups from all over the world held their own events, marches and educational activities to highlight the need to take back our food systems and promote positive solutions for local food growing.

 It was a call for action for:

• Solidarity against Monsanto’s predatory business and agricultural practices 
• Reject “ substantial equivalence” of GMO crops 
• Promote organic solutions 
• Expose the cronyism between big business and the government 
• Address poverty, the real cause of global hunger 
• Support food and seed sovereignty 
• Support local farms, bees and biodiversity 
• Labeling of all food that contains GMO’s 

Local sustainability activist Anna Maldonado

SeedBroadcast was invited by Chris Perkins to take part in the Albuquerque event called Bees + Seeds. This started with a march from the Downtown Growers Market to the Bees + Seeds Festival of music, speakers, bee and seed art, local action groups and food. This festival provided the space of people to speak out and to engage in animated conversations around many GMO issues.

Jade Leyva with her Seed Mural project

The SeedBroadcast Mobile Broadcasting Station was active and alive with visitors exchanging seeds and information about the ins and outs of growing and saving seeds in the dry southwest. Squash seeds arrived from local seed saver, Raven. He has been growing these seeds out for over forty years and were originally given to him by the great Hopi leader Grandfather David . Grandfather David was the teacher and mentor to John Kimmey, who he entrusted with the Hopi Prophecy. Kimmey  ventured further afield to sensitively spread this prophecy. In the seventies Kimmey joined with local activist Seth Rothman (Green Fire Times) to start the Talavaya organization. Talavaya was established after talking with elderly Indian and Hispanic farmers and discovering there were only a few left who still planted the old seed strains of their ancestors. It became one of the first seed banks in the southwest to save and distribute local traditional seeds. 

Raven with his Hopi squash seeds

 So forty years later the seeds were returning with their held stories and the resilience to retain their essence of purity.  They returned to remind us that we need to protect them as these strains of seeds are rapidly disappearing taking with them the traditions that are at the heart of many cultures.
We cannot let this happen.
 So let this day of action against Monsanto spark more actions, and more actions.....Please do not keep silent, raise your voices, seek those local varieties of seeds, put your hands in the soil, plant them and pray and sing for their survival…….

“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” Arundhati Roy

The following are some of the voices that spoke out:

Anna Maldonado shares her story of GMO'S

Sarah Jones talks about her love of seed bombing Yvonne Cunningham talks straight up about Food Justice Timothy Gallardo talks about applying real science to food production Sally-Alice Thompson talks about food justice and sings a song about the right to know Robin Seydel talks about justice and fairness from the soil upwards
Bryna Stalarow talks about injustice of food Marian West talks about Food Justice

Ways you can take action:

• Call or meet with your local officials
• Plant Bee-friendly flowers
• Boycott food companies that use GMO's and pesticides
• Plant a vegetable garden
• Grow food
• Grow a garden with your neighbor
• Vote with your fork
• Buy organic and local sustainable foods
• Save your lace race seeds
• Speak out, sing out, dance out
• Listen to our planet

SeedBroadcasting at the Albuquerque Museum of Art

SeedBroadcast will be parked out in front of the Albuquerque Museum of Art to Celebrate Fathers and Food.

Sunday June 21 from 12 - 4pm
Albuquerque Museum
19th and Mountain Rd NW
Albuquerque, NM

Bring seeds and stories to share!
SeedBroadcast is always free and open source. Come find us out in front of the Museum!

Celebrate Fathers and Food at Community Day

Celebrated Chefs, Seed Sharing, and Music

ALBUQUERQUE, NM –Explore ways to sustain New Mexico’s rich food traditions during Community Day on Sunday June 21st from 12 - 4 p.m. at the Albuquerque Museum. Learn about the ways you can preserve and share the community’s local food culture through a variety of activities throughout the afternoon. Bring your food-loving dad along and he receives free admission to the Museum!

Get inspiration to cook with local, in-season produce from celebrated local chefs, Jason Greene, Executive Chef and Owner The Grove Market and Café (pictured here), and Jonathan Perno, Executive Chef at Los Poblanos and James Beard Nominee. Chef demonstrations are generously sponsored by Edible Santa Fe and La Montanita Co-op.

Swap seeds and stories in the mobile van provided by SeedBroadcast, a nonprofit that encourages communities to keep local food and culture alive. Share recipes and create food-inspired art with participants from Vecinos Collective.

Enjoy the sounds of Sina Soul and Rodney Bowe SWEETLIFE in the amphitheater. Led by Rodney Bowe, (veteran vocalist, master musician, multi-genre, multi-instrumentalist,) alongside multi-lingual, multi-genre vocalist/musician, Sina Soul the band offers a dynamic selection of funk, soul and jazz music. Cash bar available.

Community Days are developed in conjunction with Albuquerque Museum’s new exhibition, Only in Albuquerque. These programs are designed to make connections to the exhibition’s main themes, Spirited, Courageous, Resourceful and Innovative. Community Days take place on the 3rd Sunday of the month through September.

This event is free with general admission....but SeedBroadcast is always free and open source. Come find us out in front of the Museum!