Agriculture & Horticulture
Our county's agriculture must remain competitive within local, national and even international markets. This requires a continuous flow of appropriate technology addressing local needs within New Mexico. Our Extension program works to maintain and strengthen programs that address these needs. Water is one of the most important limiting resources for our county's agriculture. All aspects of water use affect agricultural efficiency and profitability. Water management will become more critical as water demands for urbanization and industrialization increase.
Fruit growers in Santa Fe County continue to encounter problems and request continual assistance with orchard management practices, which will help them, improve the overall condition of their orchards and ultimately enhance their yields. A gradual adoption of new and sound orchard management practices has taken place over the past few years. But keeping the producers up-to-date is critical for them to be able to remain competitive.
Specialty Crop Production & Management
In the last 20 years, property values in Santa Fe County have soared thus making prices attractive for landowners to sell their property, while the land taxes has made it difficult for those who want to retain their land to be able to afford the taxes due to their high valuations. Most of those who have retained their land have done so because of their strong ties to the land. These people have traditionally farmed because certain specialty crops are staple foods within their household and are cheaper produce than to purchase. In order realize a larger profit from their small farms, farmers must also produce other specialty crops, which can be sold at a high value through direct sales to the consumer or to specialty restaurants. Newcomers into the Santa Fe area have increased the demand for some the traditional and non-traditional specialty crops. But in order to make it worthwhile to produce certain crops, the producer must also be willing to do some value added things to the crop to increase the value.
Range Management
Although there isn’t much federal land in Santa Fe County, most of the ranchers within the county are faced with the dilemma that environmentalists are out to make ranching more difficult for them by challenging the ranchers that they’re either destroying the environment or that they are not complying with regulations which have been set forth by governmental agencies. Furthermore, a great number of environmentalist reside within Santa Fe County are constantly accusing the ranching community of overgrazing and being responsible for the degradation of the environment without taking into account the mismanagement of other species such as elk and recreationists. Along with this problem rangelands continue to be come infested with non-native species of weeds and brush which are becoming invasive, thus getting expensive to control as they reduce the amount of palatable forage for the livestock and wildlife.