Espanola Healing Foods Oasis: Indigenous Dryland Urban Farming As Cultural-Ecological Catalyst for Regeneration

Christie Green (radicle)

The Española Healing Foods Oasis (EHFO) is a 1.5-acre ethno-botanic public demonstration and research garden in New Mexico's high desert. Emerging from what was a weedy, erosive slope between City Hall and Valdez Park, known as "needle park" due to drug-related activity and crime, the EHFO features edible and medicinal plants of cultural and ecological significance to regional Native Americans, Hispanics and Anglos.

The EHFO engages grassroots, stakeholder-driven action towards hands-on demonstration and analysis of indigenous dry land farming, water harvesting and soil-building techniques to learn about cultural, environmental, health and climate change issues related to water. Additionally, toxic soil remediation via mycroremediation is being tested. Heritage and medicinal crops cultivation and preservation techniques are shared with local and international youth, women, agriculture, and educational organizations to empower underserved, underrepresented populations and regenerate blighted land.

Through Phases I-III, the EHFO team has: collaborated with over 20 local organizations and received: over 900 volunteer hours; $12,000 in donations, over $27,000 as in-kind contributions, a $30,000 EPA grant, a $16,000 First Nations Development Institute grant; a $10,000 McCune Foundation grant, a Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area grant and a Walmart Community grant. TWU was a 2018 recipient of the NoVo Foundation Radical Hope Fund award for $900,000.

Since project inception in 2014, the garden serves as an ongoing, "living" research site where phased implementation continues based on lessons learned through experimentation and observation. Dynamic ecological and cultural elements are modified and adapted in situ, as the design team develops a framework for future replication. Specific research foci include: most resilient and productive native and adapted dry land food crop species; stone versus organic mulches for water and soil conservation; garden as outdoor classroom for at-risk youth and tourists; dry land farming as continued activation of indigenous wisdom in contemporary setting.