by Food First executive director, Eric Holt-Giménez
I attended a Campesino a Campesino national conference on agroecology and pollinators last week in the small town of Vicente Guerrero in Tlaxcala, Mexico. The Indigenous-Peasant Network in Defense of Agroecology (RIDCA) brought together about eighty peasant farmers from over 20 organizations, along with over 20 technicians, cultural workers and concerned consumers. They came from Oaxaca, Guerrero, Puebla, Tlaxcala, and the State of Mexico, some traveling all night long for the two-day gathering. There were guest speakers from Columbia, Argentina, Italy, the U.S. and Canada.
In Mexico’s Meseta Central the days are hot and the nights are cold. The harvest season is just around the corner and the hills of Vicente Guerrero are blanketed in a rich green patchwork of corn, beans, squash, oats and tomatillos. I lived and worked in Vicente Guerrero over 30 years ago. What was once a small ejido of 70 families and adobe dwellings has doubled in size. The dirt streets have been paved and 20 years of remittances from family members working in the U.S. have transformed the houses into two and even three-story block and stucco houses. And now, there is indoor plumbing. A one-table billiard hall stands at the site of my old house and garden. As I walked the streets looking up old friends, I had a hard time recognizing people’s houses.
Most farmers in Vicente Guerrero resisted the governments “counter reform” to dismantle the ejido and have held on to their communally-administrated family plots. Like many rural areas in Mexico, Vicente Guerrero has cherished its farming culture, despite the North American
This two-day conference was a gathering of farmers, a seed and farm product fair, and a celebration of campesino culture. The central theme was “Pollinators”; how they fit in the agroecosystem, how conventional agriculture is destroying them and how agroecological agriculture can restore and conserve them. Of course, many other issues found their way into the presentations and conversations., for example, the threat of GMOs to native seed conservation; the explosion of open-pit cyanide mining operations that are destroying indigenous lands, and the importance of recognizing the central role of campesina women in farming, food security and sustainable livelihoods.
It was a lively affair. A cultural worker’s group put on an excellent play about the “seduction” of the Green Revolution and GMO’s and the economic and ecological ruin this has wreaked on peasant farming. A brilliant puppeteer enacted age-old fables and legends. A wizened farmer played traditional corridos on his violin as people danced and sang. Children ran around. The food was spectacular: pozole, barbacoa, frijoles, tortillas, chiles en rajas, elotes... On the second day, everyone went on field visits to see how local farmers were conserving soil, water, biodiversity and pollinators. We came back to the center for a products and knowledge fair. The farmers of RICDA had prepared models of conserved hillsides, live demonstrations of agroecological techniques, and brought seeds, handicrafts, conserves and natural medicines to trade and sell. And people from nearby towns came to sample and buy wares.
Take home message? If the world wants to conserve heirloom seeds and pollinators, we had better learn how to conserve campesinos. It takes a culture to conserve a seed. It’s not just the genetic material; it’s the knowledge of how and where to grow the seed, how to conserve it and how to prepare it, consume it and share it. It’s the same with pollinators. If we want to ensure the pollination of our fruits, grains and pulses, we’d better support the type of agroecological farming that protects them from pesticides and provides niches and refuges for them. Small-scale, agroecological farmers are the ones doing this work today.
No comments:
Post a Comment