SANTA FE — For years, New Mexico voters who decide not to affiliate with a major political party have faced challenges — if not outright barriers — when it comes to voting in primary elections.
But that is set to change next year, after lawmakers approved legislation during this year’s 60-day session allowing roughly 310,000 registered independents to cast a ballot in the primary election without having to change their party affiliation.
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – The Larry P. Abraham Agri-Nature Center in Los Ranchos was created to be a space for the community to share agricultural resources and learn. Now, Corrales wants in on the action.
“The Agri-Nature Center provides a lot for the community and provides valuable agricultural education, demonstration of agricultural techniques that work well in our environment in our climate, and helps support local businesses at the same time,” Agri-Nature Center Agricultural Program Director William Carleton said.
The center focuses on home-grown foods, sustainable farming, regenerative agriculture through food preservation, and education through hands-on learning. With programs like animal husbandry, water conservation, research into new agricultural technology, and growers’ markets.
“They have all these workshops, land set aside for certain type of gardens, agricultural activities, cooking, and we don’t currently have something like that here in Corrales,” Dean Sherer said with the Corrales Historical Society.
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The goal is to educate people and get them involved in more sustainable practices of agriculture to promote more agricultural activities.
Both the Agri-Nature Center and the people in Corrales believe that if they can expand by adding more of these centers in the state, they can become hubs for more and more New Mexicans to get involved in and learn from. “The Agri-Nature Center serves the residents of Los Ranchos, but also people throughout the metro area and beyond,” Carleton said. “This past year, we served 46 different zip codes in New Mexico at our workshops and events.”
Two of their programs in particular have been so popular, they’re looking to expand them. Such as a community garden started this year. This is one of the programs Corrales is looking to replicate in its own community.
“There’s been so much positive feedback with the community garden, and the idea would be to expand plots,” Carleton said. “Right now we have 30, which filled up this year.”
Another popular program they’re looking to expand is a demonstration kitchen, which up until now has only been used for workshops. Going forward, they want to make the equipment available for people to use. Such as freeze-drying foods.
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“I see it as a community resource for learning how important agriculture is for us in New Mexico, and if we can sustain it in a better way, if we can learn new techniques to help our gardens grow better and larger,” Sherer said.
This morning temperatures have fallen into the low 40s in Albuquerque with mostly clear skies. Today, mild to warm high temperatures are expected in New Mexico with sunshine throughout most of the day in the Duke City before bit more cloud coverage comes in from the west. In addition, an approaching upper-level low pressure system will push into western New Mexico and southern Colorado this afternoon bringing the return of rainfall and mountain snow.
Western New Mexico is expected to experience showers and the potential for storms, while higher elevations in southwest Colorado, and parts of the northern mountains, will experience snowfall. The National Weather Service (NWS) will issue a Winter Weather Advisory in La Plata County and a portion of the San Juan Mountains from 3 pm today until 8 am on Monday. This will be primarily for gusty winds and the accumulating snowfall in higher elevations. This storm system will also bring breezy to windy conditions across the state today and primarily to the central mountain chain on Monday.
After tomorrow, another low-pressure system will move through on Thursday of this week. A surge of moisture will accompany that storm system and bring additional rainfall and mountain snow to the Land of Enchantment and southern Colorado. Moisture ahead of that system will also bring more rain chances across the region on Tuesday and Wednesday. High temperatures will also continue to drop through this week. Have a great Sunday!
