Promote Sustainable Agriculture in Chiapas, Mexico

Our latest report from the field is about two female agroecology “promoters” in the Pinebetal community in Municipality of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Along with their families, these women are practicing sustainable agriculture and sharing their skills with others thanks to your continued support. They share their experiences on a variety of sustainable agricultural methods, such as: • Diversified crops: On the plots they are growing corn, bean, potato, turnip, pea and coriander crops, as well as peach trees. In the backyard they sow coriander, radish, turnip, cabbage and oat seeds. The promoters say that “working with agroecology is part of being healthy. If you have a range of different crops it means your diet is varied; you’re not just eating corn and beans, but other kinds of foods too”. • Soil recovery: “We came from the hot lands, where a lot of corn grows because of the climate there. When we came here, the land was barren and badly degraded. We talked about it and said (we would have) to get working on soil conservation, but it was just an idea. A short time later we started work. Now we only buy corn every two months, but before it only yielded two hundred kilos per hectare, and now it’s a thousand”. The starting point for this thinking is to work on soil conservation, so that the other tasks of incorporating organic materials and fertilizers prove to be more effective. • Use of fertilizers: The families in this community make various types of solid and liquid organic fertilizers. By applying these organic fertilizers and conserving the soil, production has increased from 200 to 1,000 kilos per hectare. • Use and conservation of native seeds: Corn, bean, vegetable and fruit seeds are native to the region. Year after yearm they perform seed selection with the aim of conserving them; these seeds, as well as being used locally, are shared with other promoters from other communities.