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

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82 agroecology and the struggle for food sovereignty Washington recalled, “We took off our coats, put on our capes, and became community activists. We had to understand the political process. Through the Plant the Vote campaign, we registered people to vote. The idea was that politicians care about people who vote. We went to community boards, had meetings with city councilmen, senators ...to explain the importance of community gardens. Community gardeners became community-savvy.” In 2000, community gardeners won an injunction to stop the garden auction, and in 2002, the city agreed to a three-quarter set aside for community gardens with the remainder being developed. But Washington warned that the fight continues, as the agreement is only for eight years and the underlying problem of a city housing shortage remains unresolved. She noted that more could be done to ease the threat to community gardens, such as turning illegal parking lots into housing instead. Community gardeners in the Bronx are not just activists, Washington asserted – they are urban farmers. Urban farming has brought many benefits to the poor communities in the Bronx: fresh produce, a community safe haven, green space, a farmers’ market that links rural and urban farmers, and education about how to grow and cook agricultural products. Washington explained that a new term, “Feed Education,” emerged from the Bronx community garden movement. It reflects several insights: that the urban poor are consumers who do invest in quality products, but that the community needs education to meet its food security and standard of living aspirations. “Mexicans face hard choices: sell land, the only asset that they have, or continue to suffer poverty. Both exclude sustainable development. CIDERS realized that we need a process to recover our identity and rights. We have a living, but not a life.” – José Montenegro Cross-border Farming for Sustainable Lives Education about agriculture and community also supports Jose Montenegro’s work with the Centro Internacional para el Desarrollo Rural Sustentable (CIDERS). Montenegro, the director of CIDERS and a U.S. Mexican immigrant, helps Mexican immigrants maintain their identity and supports Mexican farmers by investing in agroecological farming systems in their communities of origin. Mexican immigrants, he explained, primarily support their families in Mexico. However, several trends prevent communities of origin from improving their lives through the U.S. income, which results in more immigration. Of the millions of dollars sent home, Montenegro explained, 15-30 percent never reaches families because the intermediary companies keep it. In addition, Mexican farmers are abandoning their land due to the loss of agricultural profits, soil erosion, and the promise of higher wages in factories. But companies often leave and Mexicans face hard choices – whether to immigrate, sell land, or continue to suffer from poverty. Montenegro described the social and psychological challenges that immigrants face: Every Mexican immigrant’s fate was determined by political, social, and economic structures, and he or she enters into a long, difficult quest: Where do I belong? In the process of seeking our own answers, we immigrants become the new members of an invisible workforce whose employment can be summarized as dirty, difficult, and dangerous. It is squeezing our ability to survive with dignity. A rural sociologist said, ‘How you refer to something yale school of forestry & environmental studies
new farmers, new consumers, new networks 83 is how you act towards it.’ As we cross the border, we are given new names: lawbreakers, wetbacks, illegals, disposable. Our histories, our contributions are not recognized nor properly rewarded. We begin to lose our identity–treated as clients, individuals always in need. CIDERS works to restore Mexican immigrants’ rights, dignity, and hope for more than just a living, but a life. They work in the “trenches,” communities that have been left behind and have no government services. They form leadership groups; hold training workshops on agro-biodiversity, agroforestry, food security, gender equity, forest restoration, seed preparation, and native seed preservation; learn from successful organic and agroecological models in Mexico. They established a university agroecology program in Durango, Mexico, and invested in home communities’ sustainable development by providing economic opportunities for women and children left behind. CIDERS also works with immigrants who want to return home. They support them through agroecological training, to build sustainable livelihoods for their return. Agroecological Technology: Family Farmer Networks Agroecological training and technology are cornerstones of family farming in Brazil as well. Jean Marc von der Weid, an agroecologist with Assessoria e Serviços a Projetos em Agricultura Alternativa (AS-PTA) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, described the historical process of land concentration and the subsequent diminishment of family farming in rural Brazil, and AS-PTA’s work to implement agroecological systems that increase crop yields and agro-biodiversity. AS-PTA established a network of family farmers practicing agroecology in the northeast, southeast, and south of Brazil. Von der Weid explained that the Green Revolution farming model – which supports agribusiness and large-scale monocropping – resulted in 40 million people, many of them family farmers, leaving rural areas. Today, an estimated 5 million family farmers remain, often located in the worst areas for farming, but contributing significantly to food security and market food supply. Agroecology is making slow but important inroads with Brazil’s family farmers. Approximately 100,000 family farmers have adopted agroecological systems. Rather than provide single-solution agroecology technology packages, AS-PTA learned that each farmer needs to develop his or her own ecological design. AS-PTA technicians introduce agroecology information, but technologies are adapted by farmers as creative, diversified solutions. Technology transfer, von der Weid explained, is most successful when it results from group work on social dynamics that improves farmer idea exchange and experimentation and builds on common knowledge. AS-PTA’s technology transfer method has resulted in improved yields and diversification of crops. In the south, family farmers in the AS-PTA network increased black bean yields by five times and corn yields up to four times, representing an average increase of 300 percent and 100 percent, respectively. In the northeast, the yield increases are not so significant, but agroecology systems have improved their yale school of forestry & environmental studies
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Report Number 4 Agroecology and the
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Agroecology and the Struggle for Fo
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eakout session reports Food Soverei
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2 agroecology and the struggle for
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mcafee 9 Sustainability and Social
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mcafee 11 organizations or depicted
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mcafee 13 industrial agriculture, n
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mcafee 15 Producing Food or Produci
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mcafee 17 ● Major international d
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mcafee 19 Agroecology is not a mono
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mcafee 21 ● Land reform of a kind
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Page 37 and 38: zimmerer 31 An Expanding Interface
Page 39 and 40: zimmerer 33 The Mesoamerican Biolog
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Page 43 and 44: levins 37 A Whole-System View of Ag
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interview: gómez 133 Interview: Al
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interview: gómez 135 a maturity th
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138 agroecology and the struggle fo
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iographies of editors 161 Biographi
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participants 163 Workshop Participa
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participants 165 Jean Marc von der
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esources 167 Resources Farmer-to-Fa
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esources 169 ATTRA - www.attra.org
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esources 171 Just Food - www.justfo
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esources 173 International Institut
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cover photo captions 175 Cover Phot
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This report originated in an intern
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