Bodhi Farms Experiences Devastating Hail and Flood.

I am putting up this post because I think it’s important people understand that climate change is quite real and it can have crushing affects on agricultural production. Last Wednesday, July 2, Bodhi Farms received 2.35 inches of rain plus roughly 4-6 inches of hail in less than an hour. To put that in perspectative, that’s more than the normal monthly rainfall we would expect in July. The hail damage by itself would be enough to destroy our row crops. That includes more than 500 heirloom tomato plants, heirloom beans and peas. Both of the Quinoa and Amaranth test fields were destroyed. Below I have included some short video and photographs to highly the extent of the damage. First off, here is 35 seconds of the beginning of the storm.

Now multiply that by an hour and you get a sense of the type of weather we experienced. Here are photographs from the aftermath.

We are now beginning to replant and recover. Clearly we will need to replant shorter season crops where we lost longer season crops. In the long term, we will need to plan on this sort of black swan weather event to be the new normal. When I moved here I anticipated that climate change should make New Mexico (specifically where the mountains meet the prairie) in the long term. What I didn’t anticipate is how violent the transition would be. I suspect that this lends support to my hypothesis that the climate has a punctuated equilibrium model, where the climate is resistant to change and as the deep ocean heats up, the climate is permanently changed and quickly. The ocean is a one of the huge drivers in climate and has acted like a thermal and carbon sink. As we cross 400 ppm Co2, it important to remember that more events like this are more likely and our current industrial food system far less resilient than a diversified food system we once had.

The purpose of this post is too ask my friends if they can help me. At the end of the post there is a donation button via Paypal. The donations will be used to create settlement along the forest arroyo along with a new greenhouse. These will be designed to handle roughly 4 inches of rain in an hour and will be used to water the farm. These ponds and greenhouses are likely to cost $6500 or so to build. If these events are the new norm, I hope to prepare for them. I would appreciate any donation you can make. Donations over $100 will be accompanied by an hour on consulting on a permaculture or software project of your choice. I will even tell you why you don’t rank as highly as you might think you should in Google. If you cannot donate, please pass this post along. I want people to see what the beginning effects of climate change look like.

Update: A number of people have requested our mailing address in order to mail a check. The mailing address is

Bodhi Farms
50 Sheridan Road
Las Vegas, NM 87701