Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty ... - Yale University

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agroecology and the struggle for food sovereignty
change to support family farms in the United States. All recognized the need for farmers
from the North and South to work together to face their common concerns and
push for policy change on national and international levels.
“I believe that despite the fact
that in some circles it is said
that the campesinos are the
cause of what is destroying the
environment…we believe that
we are the guardians of the
natural resources and for many
years have been cultivating the
land. Many of the rural areas
still continue conserving the
soil, the water, the forests, and
all that. In our communal lands
are found the greatest diversity
of plants – medicinal, edible,
and ritual – that are so
important for the life of us, the
campesinos and the indigenous
people.”
– Jesús León Santos
The Campesino Experience
Jesús León Santos, president of the Centro de Desarrollo Integral de la Mixteca
(CEDICAM) in Mexico, grew up the descendant of indigenous Mixtec farmers in
Oaxaca. The Mixtecs are an ancient culture who developed a sustainable corn-based
planting system over the centuries known as la milpa. By sowing a biodiverse assortment
of plants together in a single field, farmers helped sustain soil nutrition cycles,
with different plants using and fertilizing different parts of the soil. Local crop varieties
were adapted to the area’s climate and soils, and were resistant to pests. In León’s
childhood, chemical fertilizers and pesticides were not used in the area. Mixtec farmers
still plant many of these criollo (traditional) maize varieties without the need for
chemical inputs. León emphasized that campesinos continue to play an important role
in conservation in the Mixtec area; they conserve biodiversity by planting a diverse
assemblage of crops, and are now engaged in efforts to conserve soil, water, and
forests through CEDICAM’s initiatives.
However, León also described the serious obstacles campesinos now face.
Tremendous soil erosion plagues the Mixteca. This problem dates back to the arrival
of the Spanish colonizers, who caused massive deforestation and introduced goats and
sheep, which remain an important source of local income but devour wild vegetation.
When chemical fertilizers arrived in the area in recent decades, campesinos turned to
this as a solution, but fertilizers have only made soil degradation problems worse.
Campesinos also face structural economic problems. Prices for agricultural products
are extremely low, driving campesinos out of the countryside, so that today, few
young campesinos remain, as young people from Mixtec communities migrate north
to make their living. The national government offers little assistance; what government
extension programs do exist tend to serve larger landholders who have money
for technological investments, or educate youth to turn away from the small-farming
lifestyle.
In spite of all this, León described how CEDICAM has been building alternative ways
to manage the land, promoting ecological restoration and farmer independence from
outside resources. CEDICAM has dug dozens of kilometers of contour ditches to retain
soil and water, thereby conserving topsoil and recharging aquifers. Covering whole hillsides,
these ditches catch 90 percent of the seasonal rains, whereas before, 80 percent of
rains would be lost to runoff. CEDICAM also focuses on reforestation, planting hundreds
of thousands of trees from its nurseries every year, concentrating on species useful
to campesinos. The organization also works on diversifying production on each parcel,
and locally producing organic fertilizers with worms and other methods.
In León’s words: “Little by little, the campesinos are seeing that this is really
possible, that we are able, by ourselves, to generate a development that permits us to
make ourselves autonomous in our decisions, mainly by incorporating traditional
methods into the present practices of production.” (“Poco a poco los campesinos
yale school of forestry & environmental studies