This is a listing for the Central New Mexico LandLink program. If you are not familiar with the program please visit the LandLink home page for more information.

Reference#: 159

County: Bernalillo

Zip code: 87120

Type of opportunity sought: I currently do not have farmland, but I am looking for land to farm. I am looking for a landowner near or in Albuquerque who is interested in a land share where I will build a small (15x15 with a sleeping loft) cob cottage (of clay, sand,straw) and live in it for 5-8 years, afterwhich the cottage will belong to the landowner to use or rent out as they please. Other advantages could be the opportunity to learn about cob building by joining or watching the process. Also, there will likely be other additions such as an outdoor cob woodfire oven and possibly a courtyard and gardens. A huge bonus to this for me would be to have an acre of space for some small-scale market gardening and soil building. I will also hope to have community-wide composting to build soil with all the neighborhood's kitchen scraps and dry leaves and such. Please e-mail me if you're interested!

Specified interest in farming/ranching/animal-raising: I am interested in farming as a hobby, or as a part-time job. I am interested in building a cottage on the land for the experience and to live in, as well as an educational experience for the possibilities for natural building and land sharing near Albuquerque. I will be working on developing a cafe-juice bar component for local a vegetable distribution project, and am primarily looking for land to build a cottage and build soil, and probably do some small-scale market gardeneing after the cottage is built.

Interested in growing/raising: Vegetables, fruit, herbs, vineyard, poultry/fowl, soil! and growing a cottage.

Interested in these farming/ranching practices: Organic and permaculture. I plan to use covercrop-crop rotations on small scale beds with a bio-intensive style focusing on minimal water usage and maximum water recycling and harvesting.

Background in farming: Formal apprenticeship, informal apprenticeship, general farming (3 years or less), other licence/certification/education, and a general college degree. My other education is entirely based in experience, other than several workshops I have taken on various topics at the NM organic farmers conference and the mofga common ground fair. 

I have never owned land, in fact owning land feels quite intangible to me, since I've been working at farms for the past three years. I spent two years at Rio Grande Community Farm, have had permaculture WWOOFing experiences in Oregon, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Nicaragua, as well as goat dairy experience in New Mexico. I also WWOOFed at a CSA farm in Maine and will spend the next 4 months at two organic permaculture projects in Costa Rica and Panama. I've also worked on a variety of school garden projects.

Willing to consider the following types of business arrangements: Crop-share, partnership, and/or land share, where I build the cottage and pay for building, live in it for a decided number of years, and afterwards the cottage will belong to the landowner. Perhaps this can be used afterwards as a rental property or as an educational center or office.

Stated interest in on-site housing: No preference.

Business Plan: Yes, I have a business plan or a market in mind. I am working on developing a business plan for the cafe-juice bar and plan to market the garden produce eventually through the same project. The house plan is in the works, based off of the hand sculpted house book. It will depend on the site itself largely, though. Soil type, watershed, exsiting plants and other life are all important considerations before making an actual model and building plan.

Other Information: I have three main projects I would like to develop over the next few years. One is the building of this cob cottage. I am excited about the possibilty and affordability of building with cob as a natural material and the opportunities it may present to our generation that has debt and high living expenses as we try to seek stability in order to develop other goals in life. I have experience working with interior cob plaster and laying rock foundations for cob buildings from a previous WWOOFing experience and feel like this is the time in my life to build one for myself and experience a relationship with the land. I would like to settle and live in or near Albuquerque for number of years, if not forever. Right now in my cob building project I am focusing on, how do I find land?

My other two projects are related to sustainable business and community development. My head is not in the clouds with this. I think these projects are realistic, and I understand how to approach them in realistic increments to use my best efforts to make them a reality. 

The business is a branch off of the existing freshproduceABQ business, with the goal of expanding next year and incorporating a small restauant to use produce that is lower quality and can not be sold, the goal being a zero waste business (this will not be on your land, but I will have some of my focus here).

The other project is a grassroots community collective, and I will start by composting in the community I live in, which will also be your community. Later I will grow produce with a focus on seed saving and building long term infastructure for sharing soil, seeds, food and knowledge. We will start with soil, and possibly water harvesting. 
If you'd like to hear more, email me, i am WWOOFing in Central America until May 2012.

Listing Date: January 5, 2012