Cooperative Development Center

The Center of Southwest Culture—through its economic development division, the Cooperative Development Center—recently helped launch a new organic farming cooperative in the Villanueva Valley of northern New Mexico. With an initial founding group of nine farmers, Bueno Para Todos Farming Cooperative will plant a total of 6-8 acres at four different sites during its inaugural season. Raza students from the University of New Mexico joined local Villanueva Valley farmers and coop members to erect the coop’s new greenhouse in mid-April.

CSC Acquires Tractor, Implements & Greenhouses for Farm Coops!

The Center has purchased a farm tractor for shared use by the emerging coops in the mid-Rio region. The tractor is used to plow, disk and create furrows on the various farm sites used by the numerous farm coops already up and running in the mid-Rio Grande Region. Shared use of farm tractors and implements is part of the economy of scale the Center provides to its emerging farm cooperatives. CODECE was also able to purchase 8 100’x30’ greenhouses to provide to several of our cooperatives. In all, the Center will provide more than $150,000 in infrastructure for emerging cooperatives in 2016.