With the economy collapsing around the world, Mexican small farmers have an investment scheme – tortillas and worms. The two are symbiotic; the worms devour discarded organic matter and excrete the world’s best compost. The compost, applied to the corn plant, unleashes astounding growth.
Our neighbors here in Oaxaca (the good folks who found us our wonderful housing and community) are the Center for Support of the Oaxacan Popular Movement (CAMPO). They devote themselves to community-led development and human rights protection. They recently threw an eco-fair which drew about 5000 people. Folks came from indigenous villages in the mountains as well as from the urban barrios to learn about various sustainable agriculture, construction, fish farming and alternative energy techniques.
It’s a beautiful sight, people gathered around a makeshift fish pond in a Mickey Mouse kiddie pool, pumping Cesar the agronomist for information about how they could set up one of these in their own backyards. There is a groundswell of interest in how to produce food ecologically and cheaply. Not a bad idea during these troubled times for the planet's ecology and economy to learn how to grow your own food.... whether in Oaxaca or Boston.
Prices for petroleum-laden, chemical and industrial inputs for corn production – fertilizer, pesticides and hybrid schemes – are skyhigh. Many farmers have to leave their land idle or grow just enough to eat. It doesn’t help that the price that they receive for their corn is in the toilet, thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which opens the border to cheap corn imported from the US (and subsidized by us taxpayers).
For the past months, together with my Grassroots International colleagues, I’ve been toiling over a popular education curriculum on food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is a term gaining traction around the world, in particular by the tens of millions of peasants organized under the broad umbrella of the Via Campesina. The term is a vision really, of a radically reformed food system where small farmers have the right to produce food for their families and local markets and where consumers can gain access to reasonably priced, healthy local foods. That doesn’t sound too radical, but given the power of agribusiness and its congressional boosters, we have a long way to go in creating a fair food system that doesn’t make us all sick.
CAMPO’s work is an extraordinary contribution to this grassroots movement – of which farmers, consumers, environmentalists AND YOU are all part. You can check out the food sovereignty curriculum if you like on Grassroots’ website at http://www.foodforthoughtandaction.org/ and please look into that Mickey Mouse pool to start raising your protein.
Our neighbors here in Oaxaca (the good folks who found us our wonderful housing and community) are the Center for Support of the Oaxacan Popular Movement (CAMPO). They devote themselves to community-led development and human rights protection. They recently threw an eco-fair which drew about 5000 people. Folks came from indigenous villages in the mountains as well as from the urban barrios to learn about various sustainable agriculture, construction, fish farming and alternative energy techniques.
It’s a beautiful sight, people gathered around a makeshift fish pond in a Mickey Mouse kiddie pool, pumping Cesar the agronomist for information about how they could set up one of these in their own backyards. There is a groundswell of interest in how to produce food ecologically and cheaply. Not a bad idea during these troubled times for the planet's ecology and economy to learn how to grow your own food.... whether in Oaxaca or Boston.
Prices for petroleum-laden, chemical and industrial inputs for corn production – fertilizer, pesticides and hybrid schemes – are skyhigh. Many farmers have to leave their land idle or grow just enough to eat. It doesn’t help that the price that they receive for their corn is in the toilet, thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which opens the border to cheap corn imported from the US (and subsidized by us taxpayers).
For the past months, together with my Grassroots International colleagues, I’ve been toiling over a popular education curriculum on food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is a term gaining traction around the world, in particular by the tens of millions of peasants organized under the broad umbrella of the Via Campesina. The term is a vision really, of a radically reformed food system where small farmers have the right to produce food for their families and local markets and where consumers can gain access to reasonably priced, healthy local foods. That doesn’t sound too radical, but given the power of agribusiness and its congressional boosters, we have a long way to go in creating a fair food system that doesn’t make us all sick.
CAMPO’s work is an extraordinary contribution to this grassroots movement – of which farmers, consumers, environmentalists AND YOU are all part. You can check out the food sovereignty curriculum if you like on Grassroots’ website at http://www.foodforthoughtandaction.org/ and please look into that Mickey Mouse pool to start raising your protein.
1 comment:
i have a question in one of the pics theres a boy with his eyes closed wat is he doing????????? love barbara
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