NMSU helps 400-year-old family farm thrive in the 21st century
Thirty miles north of Santa Fe, a winding road leads to a four-and-ahalf-acre farm surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the heart of Santa Cruz. It’s where Don Bustos fuses centuries of tradition with modern touches to yield a picturesque bounty that feeds communities near and far.
Santa Cruz Farm has been in the hands of Bustos’s family for more than 400 years. Bustos grew up on the farm and later inherited it during the 1980s. He has since carried the farm into the 21st century, transforming it into a thriving operation that grows 72 varieties of produce and grosses six figures annually. It runs entirely on solar power and water from one of only two acequias in New Mexico that flow north.
Bustos attributes much of his success to taking risks, leaning on scientific advances and adhering to sacred family traditions and ancestral farming practices, but it is also the product of a longstanding relationship with New Mexico State University, the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and, more specifically, the Sustainable Agriculture Science Center at Alcalde.
