CONSERVATION

supply chain and catalyze new innovations within
Arizona’s emerging local food community. One
of them was Chris Schmidt, Conservation Director
at Native Seeds/SEARCH, and the other was Gary
Nabhan, who hard learned much from elderly
farmers while helping them sow the seeds of White
Sonora behind draft animals in traditional floodwater
fields in the borderlands. They were both mentored
by Glenn Roberts and food anthropologist Maribel
Alvarez, who had studied White Sonora in Mexico.
When the incipient collaboration began in
Arizona in late 2010, it turned for guidance to
Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills, Stephen Jones of
Washington State University’s Kneading Conference
and Monica Spiller, a historian of heritage grains in
California. Monica had assisted farmers Sally Fox and
Judith Redmond to evaluate White Sonora and soon
Thirsty Bear Brewery in San Francisco elaborated a
fine wheat beer from the harvest that Judith helped
manage at Full Belly Farms. Inspired by other heritage
grain initiatives, just three growers in Arizona initially
sowed White Sonora seed on less than twenty acres
but, by 2013, both the acreage and the number of
farmers had increased.
Emma and her father are still the only artisanal
millers in the state of Arizona but they have built a
strong cadre of collaborators. “This year we had five
farmers growing White Sonora wheat on a total of
66 acres and about 30 chefs and bakers using our
White Sonora flour. It’s great to have so many different
farmers growing because they all try different methods,
unique soil profiles and plant at different times. This
means that collectively we are learning a lot about
growing heritage grains, which we are learning is very
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