Dear friend of Questa Farmers Market, we are looking for your input. Community voices shape everything we do. As part of our mission to support small farms, garden- and food-based businesses, and youth through internships and mentorship, we’re inviting you to share your feedback in our Community Survey. Your insights help guide how we grow, what we offer, and how we support local people and projects. Whether you’re a customer, vendor, neighbor, or friend of the market, your input matters—and it helps us build a more connected local economy.
We’re grateful for your input—and for your continued support through the seasons that makes this market and community thrive. We also extend our heartfelt thanks to the foundations and organizations whose grant funding has made our work possible.
Scene from June 29 market, 2025, photo credit: G. McGahee
Questa Farmers Market (QFM) opens for its eighth season on May 26, and will meet every Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. until early October, depending on local food production. Thank you for supporting your farmers market for many seasons!
Our mission is to support small farm, garden, and food-based businesses in northern Taos County, and youth through paid market internships and mentorship. We are a program of Localogy, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) in Questa.
We organize a farmers market each Sunday during the growing season. Each season that we’re able to support our local food economy is a season that adds energy to small-scale agriculture and celebrates the communities of northern New Mexico and beyond.
Courtesy photo. Some of the 2023 market interns and mentors pose with Cucui at last October’s Cambalache
Our goals are to:
Strengthen the local food economy
Maintain a beautiful marketplace with educational gardens
Offer paid youth internships and adult mentorship positions
Distribute local food through the North Central Food Pantry
Irrigate gardens and trees at the market, keeping water rights in beneficial use
Participate in SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks, supporting equitable access to local food
2023 Season Highlights
In 2023, our youth interns and their mentors worked in visible and impactful roles at the farmers market, and in the local food system broadly at Cerro Vista Farm and the North Central Food Pantry. We hired 20 teenagers and five adult mentors during last season. At the Sunday markets, mentor and intern teams made pizzas in the horno, ran a coffee stand, and Interns worked in vendor booths selling produce, baked goods, Frito pies, and more.
Our market accepts SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB), a food benefit program that uses tokens at the market for food purchases, and tracks these exchanges. Our interns helped distribute tokens, worked with vendors, and tracked all vendors’ economic data every week.
Mentors, interns, and volunteers maintained the gardens at the market and planted a garden nearby, at Casas de Cultura, a Localogy project under the stewardship of artist and educator Scott Sutton.
Questa Stories
We offer thanks to QuestaStories.org—to Claire Coté and all of the storytellers who have contributed to the archive. We heard short stories at the market by tuning into story boxes. These stories are available online at QuestaStories.org and are collected under Voices de Aquí. Questa Stories is supporting individual, community, and cultural connection, facilitating understanding and resiliency through audio-visual story gathering and sharing. We look forward to hearing more from the communities of northern Taos County and southern Colorado this season.
2023 Economic Impact for QFM Vendors
QFM is an economic focal point, helping connect communities and visitors to local food, as well as showcase local music and talent. A farmers market helps us invest locally and strengthen our roots, rather than sending money elsewhere.
A shared source of wealth is hard to measure. One thing that we do is to measure and report annually on the economic value of the season. Our vendors earned $66,448 in 2023. On average there were 12 vendors and 300 customers each Sunday between the end of May through early October. This total includes: $26,595 in raw agricultural products (fruit/veg, eggs, honey); $32,817 in processed food (hot food, baked goods, pickles, preserves); and $7,036 in art and craft (handmade items, soaps). These exchanges and material support strengthen communal ties. Congratulations to our vendors on their hard work!
Photo by Gaea McGahee: QFM Intern Amelia Hardy helps alongside other community members, adding local produce to clients’ boxes at the NCFP distribution in October 2023
Food Benefit Programs
More than ever, growing the local food system is up to all of us. You can find details about becoming a vendor on our website (here).
To be able to offer SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks, at least 50 percent of what we sell must be raw farm goods/unprocessed local foods (fruits, vegetables, honey, eggs, meat, cheese). Local means grown within 100 miles of the market.
Vendors may also sell local prepared foods (SNAP-eligible) and value-added farm goods, and a very small percentage of handmade items or products, like salve and soap.
If you have SNAP benefits, you receive Double Up Food Bucks automatically when you use your EBT card at the market. When you take out an amount from your SNAP/EBT, for example, $20, you’ll get another $20 to spend on local fruits and vegetables, doubling your money.
Partners and Funding
We’re glad to have the opportunity to grow gardens and trees and create an inviting environment. The Questa Economic Development Fund (QEDF) owns the market site’s land. The on-site shipping container, donated by Questa Credit Union, has been invaluable to our program and for storing our garden tools. Over the years, we’ve built infrastructure (shelters, the horno, a dance floor); these improvements were possible with the financial support of the QEDF, the LOR Foundation, Taos Community Foundation, Chevron Grants for Good, the LANL Foundation, and through the work of community members and visiting volunteer groups. A Taos County American Rescue Plan Act Grant, awarded through TCF, was instrumental last season.
We’ve worked with Vida del Norte Coalition, Questa Stories, Questa Creative Council, Living Word Ministries, and other community nonprofits and individuals. Our program grows and adapts each year with the input of community voices. Thank you, all!
Photo by Jennifer Vialpando: teens building Cucui in September 2023 in Ms. Vialpando’s art class.
Come enjoy music at Questa Farmers Market with Michael Rael & Friends on opening day, May 26. The market will meet every Sunday, 10 am to 2 pm until early October. Thanks to local growers, entrepreneurs, customers and community, this will be the 8th season!
We love every bit of the local food, youth intern energy and entrepreneurial spirit, but connecting all of us, rain or shine, is the music! Local musicians, you bring hearts together, make us dance, and keep good vibes flowing.
Every market is a celebration; here’s the music lineup for the season!
May 26 Michael Rael & Friends
June 2 The Arcane Ramblers
June 6 Nick Hans
June 16 Nick Hans & the High Desert Serenaders
June 23 Phillip John Brooks
June 30 Sanji Band
July 7 Noble Rider
July 14 Owen Robert Johnson
July 21 Marlo Mortenson
July 28 Chris and Rodney Arellano
Aug 4 Alex Garcia, At The Watertower
Aug 11 Chris and Rodney Arellano
Aug 18 Mark Dudrow and Martha Shepp
Aug 25 Kate Mann
Sept 1 Becky Reardon and Julie Hawley
Sept 8 Mark Dudrow and Justin Dean
Sept 15 Chris and Rodney Arellano
Sept 22 TBA
Sept 29 Wilson & McKee from La Veta
Oct 6 Cambalache, Michael Rael & Friends & Everyone
We’re happy to host music every Sunday and we’re honored to have each musician and group join all of us this season. Support local musicians; buy their merch, dance, enjoy, and, as Michael Rael says, song requests on a one hundred dollar bill.
“Hola this is Michael Rael, one of the music entertainers in the local area for over 50 years. I really enjoy playing at the farmers market, especially with my grandson, The Deeds, Irene Martinez, Jimmy Baca, Dino Archuleta, Mark Boor and Bubba Beschler who comes to us from Pennsylvania. We’re at Rael market almost every Thursday night and so anybody that wants to join us, come in and have a fun night. So I enjoy doing that . . . and then we’re gonna be able to show off at the farmers market. Come by and enjoy all the different musicians that will come through the farmers market.”
Photo by G. McGahee: Michael Rael & Friends Oct 1 2023 Photo credit
Paid Youth Internship
We will hire eight Paid Youth Interns this season. Our program offers work-based learning, mentorship and skill development focused on the local farm and market economic system.Internsare able to work on a variety of projects each season, which include set activities and additional opportunities tailored by the student to fit their interests. The intended age group is 14 to 18, however younger people may apply. We begin hiring this month! The application is open on our website, QuestaFarmersMarket.org.
Photo by G. McGahee QFM Inters 2023 running their coffee booth and making pizza in the horno
Call to Food and Farm Vendors
More than ever, growing local food is up to all of us. To be a farmers market, eligible to accept EBT/SNAP and Double-Up-Food-Bucks, at least 50% of what we sell must be raw farm goods/unprocessed local foods (fruits, vegetables, honey, eggs, meat, cheese). Local means grown within 100 miles of the market. Vendors may sell local prepared foods (SNAP eligible) and value added farm goods, and a small percentage of handmade items.
If you have SNAP benefits, you receive Double-Up-Food-Bucks (DUFB) automatically when you use your EBT card at the market. You’ll swipe your EBT card for $20 and you’ll get another $20 to spend on local fruits and vegetables, doubling your money (this DUFB portion is a Federal grant).
Interested in being a Vendor? Please get in touch with our Market Manager, Susannah Hall. To contact us, call (575) 224-2102 or email growersmakers@gmail.com You can find details on our website, questafarmersmarket.org/for-vendors/
We are a program of Localogy, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) in Questa. Our mission is to support small farm, garden and food based businesses in northern Taos County, and youth through market internships and mentorship.
Questa Farmers Market 