In March, residents throughout Small Town Arizona faced a new and harsh reality as heightened demand for food in the Metro-Phoenix area resulted in emptied shelves in rural communities. Arizona’s food system, one that had become progressively more globalized over time, had finally yielded local consequences. Rural Arizona could no longer ignore trends where farms had been reporting increasingly negative revenue while communities simultaneously suffered from alarmingly high rates of food insecurity and increases in diet-related disease.
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While many people in our society may have forgotten about the native crops of our region, the people of the Ajo Center for Sustainable Agriculture (Ajo CSA) surely have not. Ajo CSA noticed that many traditional crops and agricultural techniques that are unique to our region were in danger. How did they respond? They created the Adopt-A-Sonoran-Desert Crop Program: a seed-saving program that aims to preserve and promote native and regionally appropriate crops.
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