New Mexico

La Semilla Food Center cultivates a healthy, self-reliant, and just food system in the Paso del Norte region of southern New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. Grounded in power analysis, equity, and respectful land stewardship, the organization works alongside neighbors, elders, and youth to strengthen food sovereignty, economic opportunity, and cultural continuity in border communities.

As a land-based organization rooted in desert ecology, La Semilla challenges extractive systems while nurturing regenerative relationships among food, health, local economies, and ancestral heritage.

CSC partnered with La Semilla to refresh and deepen its Edible Education program through a soil-keeping lens — integrating practical agricultural knowledge with a broader understanding of systems transformation.

This work focused on:

• Strengthening youth leadership and ecological literacy
• Connecting land stewardship with cultural identity and community resilience
• Expanding understanding of how food systems reflect larger social and economic structures
• Cultivating awareness of how care, reciprocity, and regeneration counter extractive paradigms

By grounding program development in soil-keeping principles, the initiative deepened youth’s relationship to land while offering a living metaphor for systems change — illustrating how tending roots, relationships, and conditions shapes what becomes possible above ground.

This engagement reflects CSC’s broader commitment to integrating ecological wisdom, cultural knowledge, and community leadership in advancing regenerative transformation.