Pathways to Resilience

Learn about applying for a farm loan through the Farm Service Agency (FSA). FSA offers loans to help farmers and ranchers get the financing they need to start, expand or maintain a family farm.
 
Sunny Dooley, based in Vanderwagon, New Mexico, is a storyteller, folklorist and cultural consultant – collecting, learning and retelling the oral tradition of the Diné Hozhojii Hané (Navajo Blessingway stories). She has shared these stories by oral tradition in Navajo and in English for a variety of organizations, universities, elementary schools, and conferences throughout the U.S., Canada, Africa, Europe and Mexico including the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, the Denver Arts Museum, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISDI), and programs sponsored by the PEW Charitable Trust. In 2025, she executive produced the documentary film, “Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History.”

Learn about applying for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Through EQIP, NRCS works one-on-one with producers to develop a conservation plan that outlines conservation practices and activities to help solve on-farm resource issues. Producers implement practices and activities in their conservation plan that can lead to cleaner water and air, healthier soil and better wildlife habitat, all while improving their agricultural operations. EQIP helps producers make conservation work for them. Financial assistance for practices may be available through EQIP.  Some producers may also qualify for advance payment.
 
Sunny Dooley, based in Vanderwagon, New Mexico, is a storyteller, folklorist and cultural consultant – collecting, learning and retelling the oral tradition of the Diné Hozhojii Hané (Navajo Blessingway stories). She has shared these stories by oral tradition in Navajo and in English for a variety of organizations, universities, elementary schools, and conferences throughout the U.S., Canada, Africa, Europe and Mexico including the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, the Denver Arts Museum, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISDI), and programs sponsored by the PEW Charitable Trust. In 2025, she executive produced the documentary film, “Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History.”

Learn about applying for the Conservation Stewardship Program. Whether you are looking to improve grazing conditions, increase crop resiliency, or develop wildlife habitat, a custom designed CSP plan can help meet those goals. NRCS can help you identify natural resource problems in your operation and provide technical and financial assistance to solve those problems or attain higher stewardship levels in an environmentally beneficial and cost-effective manner.
 
Sunny Dooley, based in Vanderwagon, New Mexico, is a storyteller, folklorist and cultural consultant – collecting, learning and retelling the oral tradition of the Diné Hozhojii Hané (Navajo Blessingway stories). She has shared these stories by oral tradition in Navajo and in English for a variety of organizations, universities, elementary schools, and conferences throughout the U.S., Canada, Africa, Europe and Mexico including the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, the Denver Arts Museum, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISDI), and programs sponsored by the PEW Charitable Trust. In 2025, she executive produced the documentary film, “Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History.”
 
 

Edward “Bardo” Gonzales gained a hoop house, drip irrigation, pest management system, and soil-moisture indicators through an NRCS EQIP grant, all on the land his family has lived and farmed on for multiple generations. Here, Bardo speaks to his positive experience working with the NRCS, as well as involving the youth in his family and village in getting involved with land stewardship.
 
Edward “Bardo” Gonzales lives in Chamisal, New Mexico with his wife Juliet, where they maintain the culture and traditions of acequias and small-scale farming.

Farmer Toribio Gonzales has been farming his whole life, but he hasn’t always irrigated with drip tape. With help from an NRCS grant, Toribio continues to be an active parciante (member and user) of the Acequia de Lino in Chamisal, New Mexico with the addition of a drip irrigation system. 
 
Toribio Garcia is a lifelong resident of Chamisal, New Mexico and assistant director of finance and administration at the New Mexico Acequia Association. Proud partner to Olivia Chavez and father to Toribio Garcia Jr. and Francisco Garcia. Toribio was raised off of the Acequia del Monte and has been an active peon since the age of 16. Toribio and his family are currently parciantes on the Acequia de Lino where they grow a garden, maintain a large high tunnel, and care for a few fruit trees. Toribio has been an NMAA employee since 2015 and participated in the Sembrando Semillas program since it was created in 2005.

Farmer Donne Gonzales runs an acequia-irrigated vegetable and poultry farm in Chamisal, New Mexico, a historically agricultural village. As the director of the New Mexico Acequia Association’s youth farmer training program, Las Sembradores, and a farmer who says she has built her farm with “a lot of love,” Donne’s space has become a community center for young people to gather and learn both traditional and modern farming techniques. In this segment, hear how Donne succeeded in obtaining an Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) grant to fund a high tunnel on her property, so that she is able to offer more learning opportunities (and food to eat) to her community.

At LeDoux Grange, an organic-certified, diversified vegetable farm in the mountains of Mora County, New Mexico, beneficial pollinators like honey bees, hover flys, and lady bugs get to forage for longer thanks to a high tunnel. During the margins of the growing season, when nothing outside is flowering, Farmer Kristin Swoszowski-Tran leaves the doors to her high tunnel open. The tunnel, funded through an Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) grant allows LeDoux Grange’s tiny, winged-residents to forage on the pollen and nectar-producing plants.

At 7,400 feet in elevation, LeDoux Grange, an organic-certified vegetable farm outside of Mora, New Mexico, faces cold temperatures. In this segment, farmer Kristin Swoszowski-Tran shares how installing a high-tunnel, partially funded by an Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) grant, allows her to start her growing season early, and end late.

For her crops to thrive in a harsh climate, farmer Kristin Swoszowski-Tran needed infrastructure to protect her grains, tomato plants, and pulses from the 65 mph winds that rip through her valley. With the help of an Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) grant, Swoszowski-Tran was able to afford premium-grade steel and covering for a high tunnel that has stood the test of time.