10/03/2026 Slow Food Santa Fe edition

Kristin Swazowski Tran, owner of Ledoux Range, an organic certified farm in Mora, New Mexico, was told by her parents not to go to agriculture school as a kid. Decades later, after careers as a psychologist and in arts research, she is back where she started—growing produce, trialing grains and pulses, raising yaks, and producing native seed for conservation. On this episode of Slow Food Santa Fe Out Loud, she walked through what that actually looks like on 34 acres at 7,400 feet elevation, and why small-scale regenerative farming in northern New Mexico faces a set of problems that aren't solved by just wanting to farm better.

What regenerative agriculture means on the ground

For Tran, regenerative agriculture is not a marketing label. It is a return to a closed-loop system that was standard before synthetic fertilizers and chemicals became dominant. Animals on the farm produce manure, which goes into compost, which feeds the vegetables. The goal is to actively improve the land rather than deplete it. She places regenerative farming under the broader umbrella of agroecology—marrying agriculture and ecology by considering climatic systems, soil systems, biodiversity, and the relationships between microscopic organisms and large animals. "I think of it as if it's a very complex system," she said, "and anything that I can do to create a sense of redundancy and diversity with