La Agri-Cultura Cooperative Network (LAN), provides access to local produce to promote nutrition and economic development through traditional and innovative agricultural practices, therefore furthering environmental and community stewardship to strengthen the agrarian and cultural heritage of our land and its residents. The programs of LAN are focused in three categories: Wholesale Business, Community Engagement/Nutrition Education, and Farm Capacity Building. La Cosecha Community Supported Agriculture is a food access program that operates within LAN, a farmer owned cooperative located in the South Valley of Albuquerque. La Cosecha feeds more than 300 families every week in Albuquerque. La Cosecha’s mission is to ensure that low income South Valley and International District families have adequate and sustainable access to healthy and affordable locally grown food and nutrition education, strengthening the local economy by providing a stable market for local farmers. The South Valley, Albuquerque, NM is a mixture of the City of Albuquerque and unincorporated Bernalillo County. There are a lot of farms and farmers living in this area, many of whom have been farming this land for multiple generations. At the same time, it is considered a food desert, as well as has a high percentage of unemployment, and low-income households.

The FoodCorps service member at La Agri-Cultura Cooperative Network is a part of the New Mexico cohort that includes 10 service members across 8 different service sites. Service sites in New Mexico are located in what has come to be known as the cities of Santa Fe, Bernalillo, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Anthony. We acknowledge and seek to continually honor that all land within the present borders of New Mexico were originally entrusted and stewarded by Indigenous Peoples. Through a journey of cultural humility, we serve at each site with the knowledge that each of these geographical and cultural boundaries have been constructed as a result of unjust historical events. New Mexico prides itself on our population, which consists of a majority of People of Color, and the deep well of cultural assets each ethnic group adds to our communities. As a result of racist ideologies and concurrent policies that have systematically marginalized these populations, New Mexico currently has the lowest quality of life for children and some of highest hunger and poverty rates in the nation. With this historical pretext and a systems change approach as the foundation, service members will engage with children, families and communities to offer food education through a decolonial, equitable, anti-racist lens with support from site supervisors, community, and state staff.