local food

Food co-ops today are facing big challenges that can sometimes pit management against member-owners.

Here in New Mexico, a group called Take Back the Co-op is organizing members of the state’s largest food cooperative to voice their concerns about recent changes at the business.

Co-op leadership held meetings last week to talk to members about the changes.

A group called Take Back the Co-op wants to make big changes at La Montañita Co-op. The group says New Mexico’s largest food cooperative has become too corporate and isn’t listening to member-owners, and are collecting signatures for a petition.

Santiago Maestas has been growing fruits and vegetables on a small plot of land in the South Valley for over 40 years. He's standing by a centuries-old acequia near Isleta Boulevard south of Albuquerque—a modest, earthen ditch carrying slow-moving irrigation water away from the Rio Grande and into fields and gardens.