ABOUT ME
Zach Withers - Independent Perspective
WHERE I COME FROM
I was born and raised in the East Mountains. I spent my early childhood on my grandparents horse ranch just east of San Antonito, and moved up the road into Sandia Park when I was ten. I graduated from East Mountain High School in 2007, then spent eight years in Vermont where I attended and graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in International Studies with a focus on political science and the middle east/northAfrica. I spent another four years in Vermont making craft alcohol and learning to farm.
WHAT I DO NOW
In 2015 I moved home shortly after my Grandpa Gene Polk passed away. I joined my two brothers on the family farm and began building a regenerative farm business. Today my brother Ethan and I raise heritage breed hogs on food waste. Microbes in our compost piles, and a mix of goats, sheep and laying hens graze our forty acres to improve soil health. We operate a small butcher shop and local food store in Cedar Crest where we process our hogs and goats and sell our meat as well as locally and sustainably produced food from dozens of local farms and ranches.
WHY I AM RUNNING
For the last eight years I have been working to affect positive change from the farm level to the federal level. Agriculture is inherently political. While developing our own farm we have had to fight every step of the way to overcome the morass of bureaucracy, hostile regulations, distorted market conditions, and all the bullshit that passed for governance in this county, this state, and this country. I am running for State Representative to continue catalyzing change, to bring local issues back to the forefront of political discourse, and to create a government that works for everyone in our community.
POLITICS
LOCAL ISSUES
My politics are local. They focus on water, land, food, and local economy. I am not running to push a partisan agenda or an ideological viewpoint. Effective governance is not a matter of political or social ideologies, but of vibrant democratic process and an informed and engaged community. Effective governance starts with electing people that are invested in working on behalf of everyone in their community to address the very real and pressing issues we face in stead of advancing their own political agendas, the party line, or the financial interests of their donors.
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Water
All across district 22 aquifers are going dry. In the Estancia Basin the ground water levels are dropping at over a foot per year. East of the Sandia Mountains the average decline is over two and half feet per year. At this rate the majority of wells will go dry within decades. Already mineral content of much of the water that has spent centuries filtering through the soil and rocks into the aquifers makes much of it essentially undrinkable. This reality poses major challenges to everyone in our community to say the least. There are solutions, but creating the political and social will to implement those solutions is a daunting task.
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Land
The health of the soil is the one factor we can engage with that has an impact on the amount of precipitation that will make it back to the aquifer. Healthy soil absorbs more water, which not only helps recharge ground water but helps farms and ranches become more productive, resilient, and economically viable. The worth of the land however goes beyond its water absorption capacity, food production potential, or real estate appraisal. This land is our home. Developing a respect for the land and caring for it is vital if we want our communities to sustain.
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Food
Everyone needs water everyone needs food. While many folks think food comes from a store and water comes from a pipe, these are fantasies that we can no longer afford to indulge in. Ensuring a long term, local supply of these basic necessities will require a radical transition away from extractive forms of commodity food production and unchecked suburban sprawl to regenerative and local food production and sensible development.
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Local Economy
Problems are seeds of solutions. The same things that drive unsustainable water pumping for both suburban development and commodity agriculture are economic. Our local economy is heavily restricted to these two sectors. Developing alternative local economies around sustainable agriculture, food processing, forestry, sustainable energy production, water harvesting and shepherding, natural building, watershed restoration, and ecological education can break the vicious that is leading us into a race to the bottom.