BAJA CALIFORNIA SUR AGROECOLOGY & FOOD SECURITY EXCHANGE
Foodshed Co-Director and farmer Hernan Cavazos was invited to participate in this beautiful exchange around agroecology and food security grassroots work thanks to the ICF (International Community Foundation) and ASA (alianza para Salud Alimentaria). Here’s his report back:
In general, it was pretty amazing to be back home in Mexico and see these organizations working together. There is so much similarity in certain areas to the work that we are doing over here in Foodshed San Diego, especially when it comes down to really connecting local producers to local people that really need healthy food.
One of the pretty cool things ASA is doing already is working with community leaders that run “comedores” where they cook and serve food for vulnerable communities.
Some of the primary conversations where around:
What it means and what is needed to create an “ecosystem of support” for farmers and regional food economies
Creative financing models for producers and food entrepreneurs
Strategies connecting producers with local/regional markets (i.e. aggregation, marketing and distribution strategies)
Farmer to farmer transfer of knowledge
Some other goals in mind during these few days were to generate greater awareness of the current context and opportunities for food/farming system shifts in Baja California Sur, foster connectivity and deepen relationships in the network of thought leaders and practitioners in Mexico and the US, and inspire support for a giving circle committed to boosting regional farmers and the groups working with them.
Regenerating the land and our communities.
One of the challenges in baja sur is that a lot of the organic farms are exporting their goods or focusing sales in wealthy areas-- which is a problem all over the world. The ICF and ASA are working with the local farmers to create ways to support local organic farms and create incentives so the food stays local.
We visited a few farms to learn what they are doing to adapt to the weather adversities. In this picture we can see Guadalupe Espinoza from Flora Farms using banana trees for shade and growing row crops in between to reduce heat in the soil.
Other farmers are taking advantage of the weather by focusing on crops like tomatoes and basil.
Another challenge that some of these farmers face is that the demand of an exporting cooperative pushes them to export as much as they can produce, but they recognize the need for some of that produce to stay in the area at an affordable rate.
Networking
ASA and ICF did an incredible job bringing together a very diverse group of farmers and organizers, while linking to agroecology in light of Baja’s high tourism. The important idea is that by feeding people we can heal the land and by healing the land we take care of the future generations.
It was an amazing opportunity to be able to exchange ideas with other organizations like The Farm Collaborative. They are running similar projects to Foodshed--doing the crucial work of connecting producers to marketing outlets that are beneficial for the local people, offering support to farmers via quick loans and a tool lending library.
We live in times where the solutions to the problems related to food security, climate adaptation and local economy can be healed by working with farmers and local community leaders. As long as we need to eat, we can fix it and there is hope.
