We live in a special place, here in Baja Arizona: a mélange of Sonoran Desert, oak woodlands, towering sky islands and treasured riparian zones that is unlike anywhere in the world. We want to celebrate our regional identity as a rich mixture of Native American, Mexican and immigrant cultures that collide and cross-pollinate to create something truly special. And we consider our neighbors across the imposed international boundary in Sonora to be an integral part of what makes this region taste, smell and feel the way it does. We celebrate these connections, and go in search of the flavors of Baja Arizona, regardless of borders. (Baja, by the way, means “lower” in Spanish; our region is south of the Gila River.) Food is our most direct and enduring connection to the cultures, land, water and weather cycles of our bioregion. In our pages, we use regional foodways as a lens into the social and environmental issues, the rich cultural heritages, and the future options for living well in the desert despite our very real limitations.
Our mission is to:
Provide high quality reporting, writing, and photography that illuminate a wide range of food-related and food system topics specifically relevant to the Baja Arizona foodshed.
Promote people and organizations that are doing exemplary and passionate work in the areas of local food, sustainable agriculture and culinary heritages.
Connect consumers with producers and purveyors of locally-produced foods, beverages and comestibles of all kinds.
Empower area residents to participate in producing their own food through gardening, water harvesting and urban homesteading, and in ways that make sense in an arid land.
Advocate for the critical importance of rebuilding our foodshed, which means telling the story of why local food makes sense as both an economic development strategy and as an environmental sustainability imperative, especially given the inescapable consequences of climate change.
Simply celebrate the joys of eating and cooking locally, seasonally and in ways that connect us with diverse food heritages and culinary heirlooms in this unique region of deserts and woodlands.
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