NM Healthy Soil Working Group (or NM Healthy Soil for short) was founded in the fall of 2018 as an alliance of grassroots advocates working to enact New Mexico’s Healthy Soil Act which supports land managers in soil stewardship through grants, technical assistance and education.
In addition to our policy work, we provide an array of tools and services to assist farmers and ranchers in the transition to better soil health and regenerative agriculture with the goal of becoming both economically successful and ecologically sound.
As a statewide, grassroots organization NM Healthy Soil takes a teamwork approach to facilitating a healthy and equitable food system. Partnerships, coalition-building and consensus are key tenets of our process. About half of our network consists of agricultural producers and the other half comprises educators, consumers, rural and urban residents, and members of Indigenous communities.
We build the movement and support land managers by offering resources, peer-to-peer learning and networking. We’re advancing consensus based soil stewardship while creating favorable government policy and raising active awareness in our civil society.
It is our mission to achieve rapid adoption of healthy soil principles, resulting in greater ecological and human well being, significant water infiltration, rural prosperity, and climate resilient communities.
A grassroots nonprofit organization, NM Healthy Soil is fiscally sponsored by the Climate Change Leadership Institute (CCLI). For donations, please use the CCLI portal and add a note to make sure the donation goes to NM Healthy Soil. Thank you!
Core Team
Robb Hirsch acts as lead legislative liaison and facilitates the bridge loan program for awardees of the New Mexico Department of Agriculture’s Healthy Soil Program. Robb recognizes that the health of food, the health of our families and the health of the planet are all directly connected to the health of the soil.
Robb is the founder and executive director of the Climate Change Leadership Institute (CCLI), a non-profit 501(c)3 organization based in Santa Fe. Robb earned a BA in environmental policy from Harvard University and as a Fulbright Scholar received an MA in sustainable development from New Zealand’s Otago University.
He worked for the US Department of State Oceans, Environment and Science (OES) Bureau focused on the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Biodiversity Treaty. Presently, along with CCLI, Robb runs a New Mexico wind energy business (WindForce), and does consulting for utility scale renewable energy development companies. He recently served as the co-chair for the City of Santa Fe Sustainability Commission and Santa Fe Green Chamber of Commerce.
Isabelle Jenniches As a community organizer, Isabelle’s main focus is in policy, movement building and farmer-to-farmer education. Drawing from an extensive background in the arts, she now applies her skills to storytelling, communications and outreach as well as program development and coordination.
Summers spent at her grandparents’ small farm in the Eifel region of Germany instilled in Isabelle a deep love for an agrarian way of life. Moving to the US in 2005, she started a community garden, studied organic agriculture and permaculture and worked at a fifth generation family farm in California before coming to New Mexico.
Isabelle was involved with the CA Healthy Soil Program as part of the California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN). At the Ecological Farming Association (EcoFarm) she established the organization’s regenerative agriculture initiative and helped coordinate the annual EcoFarm Conference, bringing together ~1,800 food system stakeholders from across the US and internationally.
She represents the Working Group on the Steering Committee of the National Healthy Soils Policy Network, serves on the New Mexico Recycling and Illegal Dumping (RAID) Alliance and is a founding board member and acting Secretary of the New Mexico Agrarian Commons.
Navona Gallegos is a soil ecologist and permaculture designer, and focuses on catalyzing beneficial relationships in both soil and human communities. She works to provide soil health education through teaching, networking, and communications.
With deep roots in New Mexico as a multi-generational Mestiza farmer, Navona’s passion for land-care began at a young age. Observing the dramatic changes in the ecosystem around her due to land-use practices, she was inspired to delve into ecology and community organizing and to take up management of her family’s Quay Ranch in Tucumcari, NM.
Navona earned a BA in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia and is a graduate of Dr. Elaine Ingham’s Soil Food Web Training. She also draws on informal learning from a diverse group of land stewards and community organizers from across the United States, Caribbean, and Central Africa. She is a member of the permaculture consulting group, Reverdecer (reverdecer.org) and serves on the City of Santa Fe Water Conservation Committee.
