Blue corn and melons: meet the seed keepers reviving ancient, resilient crops

In north-western New Mexico, traditional Indigenous farming methods are being passed down to protect against the effects of climate crisis

On a windy winter day in Acoma Pueblo in north-western New Mexico, Aaron Lowden knelt beside a field near the San Jose River, the tribe's primary irrigator for centuries.

The soil has been building up," said Lowden, an Indigenous seed keeper and farmer, pushing his hand into the soft, dark dirt at the base of a stalk of dried Acoma blue corn. In the summer, this otherwise dry stretch of land turns into a food forest", said Lowden, pulling up a photo on his phone showing lush rows of corn, intercropped with Hopi yellow beans, and Acoma winter squash - the three sisters" of Pueblo agriculture.