Every time you shop at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market you support local farmers. It’s a decision that matters – we get the freshest and best quality food while helping Northern New Mexico farms stay healthy and strong. Bevin Carnes of the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Institute introduces us to one of those farmers and shares a story of resilience, commitment, and tenacity in the face of unrelenting challenges.  

Anyone who has seen Malandro Farm’s spread of lush, vibrant produce at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market knows that farmer Lisa Anderson can make things grow. But Anderson’s farming partnership with her husband ended when the couple split. Without access to the land, equipment, and infrastructure she had spent years building, she didn’t know whether she could do it again somewhere else.  

Last May, visitors to the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Institute’s annual Farm Tour & Luncheon saw Anderson rebuilding largely by hand on a small rental plot in La Puebla. There, she began to understand that what made her first farm succeed was not only what she had lost, but what remained: her knowledge, skill, and determination. This time, she was putting them to work on her own terms. 

Meet Malandro Farm, a Vendor at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market

Bevin Carnes: What first inspired you to become a farmer? 

Lisa Anderson of Malandro Farm: I worked in the produce department of a natural food store and enjoyed interacting with farmers delivering local produce. Then I found an internship on a farm in southern Colorado and saw what it took to turn a pasture into vegetable production. 

I found a lot of resonance with food and its energetic capacity for healing and nourishment. As a young woman, your relationship with food can become really distorted because of pressure to look a certain way. I wouldn’t say I had disordered eating, but my relationship with food was weird. Growing my own food helped me change my view of it as a source of nutrition and fuel. 

B.C.: Where did you find the resilience to begin again? 

L.A.: You cannot do this if you’re not passionate about it. But I may just have a level of grit overall. I don’t know if it’s my astrology or circumstances, but I’m not good at giving up. Sometimes that is a positive quality, sometimes not. 

For a while, I hoped I could keep farming the land in Abiquiu because I had so much invested. It was my baby, and I didn’t want it to be over. I hated having to shelve the farmer part of me on someone else’s terms. But I thought, “I don’t have land, and you can’t farm without land.” 

Then I was unexpectedly offered a rental plot in La Puebla. And it was spring, when a farmer is like, “I should be doing stuff.” I thought, “I’m itchy. I need to be outside and sneezing.” 

So much of farming is the relationship with the land. Starting on this totally foreign plot, I was blown away that I could grow anything. It was important for my healing process to say, “Oh, I am actually good at this—without him, without that land, without anything he did.” 

B.C.: What has doing so much farming by hand been like? 

L.A.: Part of my connection with the land is doing a lot manually. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but I am an athlete, you know? So I need to recognize my limits, but I think I’m doing better at not injuring myself. We’ll see. 

It also causes you to slow down and humanizes the work more. It feels like when I first started farming; it’s more romantic. Is it sustainable? I don’t know yet. Does it pay my Santa Fe bills? Probably not. 

B.C.: Have you faced challenges that might have been different if you were a man? 

L.A.: In my specific circumstance, if I were a man, I probably wouldn’t have had to walk away from everything. I wouldn’t have abandoned equipment and infrastructure without reimbursement. A man might feel entitled—or at least empowered—whereas I didn’t feel empowered to say, “No, this is mine, and I’m taking it all.” 

B.C.: What has growing up around farming given your children? 

L.A.: They’re not confused about where food comes from, what good food is, or how it makes you feel. 

If my son hasn’t eaten enough vegetables lately, he’ll ask me for a salad. There’s an ingrained knowing of the feeling that comes from good food—and when it’s lacking from your body, how to remedy it. That is invaluable. 

B.C.: What are you most proud of, and what comes next? 

L.A.: I’m proud that I gave it another go and didn’t just throw in the broad fork, so to speak. 

I have some fantastical ideas of having a teaching farm someday, where people without land or farming knowledge could work a season. When I learned, I learned from an old man who didn’t have the physical capacity to do the labor anymore. He shared his knowledge and had young bodies materialize it. 

There’s so much value in acquired knowledge. Everybody doesn’t need to make all the mistakes every time. I could save someone decades of trial and error. We’re coming into uncertain times and I would love everybody to succeed at growing food. Passing that knowledge on would feel really meaningful to me. 

Story by Bevin Carnes, Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Institute
Photography by Gabriella Marks

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