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General Membership Fall Edition
New Mexico Farmer Chosen as National Finalist by Dalene Hodnett, Director of Communications and Media Relations who are interested in farming for a living.”
know that our product is healthy for them and is grown responsibly. They see us planting cover crops to protect the soil from wind during the winter and as a way to add nutrients back to the soil. At any point they are welcome to come see where their onions or beans come from.” What they would see during a visit is Hill micromanaging his farm through crop rotation, building soil health with green crops such as beardless wheat, and utilizing drip irrigation to properly meet a plant’s water needs. “When a plant is not having to struggle to produce, it creates a better tasting product.”
Growing an interest in agriculture is one of the reasons Hill was recently chosen as a finalist for the United States Farmers and Ranchers Alliance “Faces of Farming One of Hill Farms latest products and Ranchis pinto beans. They have 25 acres Hill Farms grows corn which is chopped when it is harvested to be ing” nationplanted in pintos and in February fed as silage to dairy cows. Photo courtesy of Jay Hill. wide search. they completed a bean cleaning and “To help give sacking facility that can sack up to a real face to agriculture, USFRA has 44,000 pounds a day. “It allows us to “We believe in the three T’s - trust, continued on page 17 transparency and taste,” says Jay Hill, selected these standout farmers and ranchers a 30 year-old farmer who grows pinto who are Soil is molded into beds for onion seed. Photo courtesy of Jay Hill. beans, onions, corn and alfalfa in the proud of Mesilla Valley. “With everything what they we do, we have the end consumer in mind. Yield is important, but it’s more do, eager to important to have someone enjoy your share their stories of product and then ask for it again. It’s continuous about the integrity of your brand.” improvement That brand is Hill Farms and represents 700 acres of good soil farmed by and who are actively several family members. A graduate involved in of New Mexico State University, Hill sharing those was the only one in a family of five children that wanted to farm. “I grew stories in public and up in a sandbox made from a tractor on social tire and I’ve just always loved the media,” says dirt.” Hill and his father Jim, along with their wives Katie and Debby, run the contest the farm and have now recruited neph- website. ews and brothers to help out. “The “People labor market is getting tighter. There who follow are fewer people who understand how the farm on things grow and fewer young people Facebook Fall 2014
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