Author: Andrew Gerlicz

Update from the Field: Soil analysis in the coffee plots

Update from the field: Soil analysis in the coffee plots

Between March and June this year, as part of our soil health project in smallholder coffee plots in Guatemala and Mexico, our team returned to the farms to collect soil samples and some additional data. As in the first visits, we focused on the same two sites within each plot: those that farmer-participants considered most fertile and least fertile. In total, we visited 60 plots in Mexico and Guatemala, collecting 120 soil samples in total. From there, we’ve moved on to analysis, including several analytical methods that we’ve conducted within the cooperative offices. A new post in the blog we’ve created to follow this process details what we’ve been up to over the last few months and a bit more on why we’re doing it. 

Read on newest entry to learn more.

Agroecological education in the Andes: Strategies for community-centered co-learning 

Agroecological education in the Andes

Strategies for community-centered co-learning

Transitions toward just and sustainable food systems are complex processes involving evolving relationships between communities of plants, animals, fungi and bacteria, as well as conscious action by growing numbers of people with shared values. At the Institute for Agroecology (IFA), we focus on transformative learning as the fundamental component of building movements and co-creating understandings that can lead to positive change in agroecosystems, communities, territories and institutions.

Over the past two months the Institute’s Agroecology Support Team facilitated an online International Course on Agroecological Transitions with the participation of adult professional students from Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.

Promotional poster for an agroecology course

The six-week course, entitled Agroecology for Life: Problem-solving in Transition Processes, was designed as a primer in Participatory Action Research for researchers, professionals and members of social organizations that accompany communities in processes of transformation using agroecological principles.

Taking full advantage of the tools of digital online education, the course combined lively synchronous discussion sessions with guest speakers, asynchronous forums, videos, readings from popular press and academic sources, songs and Andean prayers asking permission of Mother Earth.

Screenshot of participants engaging in online workshop
Screenshot of one of the many dialogues among participants throughout the course

As a formation (i.e. learning) process created to support the Andes Community of Practice of the Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems (CRFS), “the bedrock of this educational effort is the deep context of Andean agriculture, its peasant knowledge systems and indigenous cosmovisions,” according to course co-facilitator and IFA Research Associate Nils McCune.

This context includes the language and culture of Quechua and Aymara peasant farmers in the Andean region of tropical mountains and vertical archipelagos reaching from the Pacific Ocean to the Altiplano desert at elevations above 13,000 feet above sea level, as well as recent sociopolitical change emerging from new constitutions in 2008 and 2009 that recognized the “plurinational” character of Ecuador and Bolivia, respectively. In addition to the colonial language, Spanish, indigenous languages Kishwa and Shuar were recognized as official languages by Ecuador’s Constitution of 2008, while Bolivia’s 2009 Constitution recognized 37 official languages.

Visitors admire a corn and bean plot in Bolivian Andes
An agrobiodiverse plot in Bolivia

Indeed, the institutional context for agroecological transitions is unique in the Andes. Ecuador was the first country in the world to incorporate the Rights of Nature into its Constitution, and Bolivia followed suit in 2010 with the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, which grants all nature equal rights to humans. Both countries have constitutions that recognize the state’s responsibility to guarantee food sovereignty, the right of peoples to build, control and defend their own food systems according to their knowledge and culture.

This context shows the need for “a more horizontal, humble approach that sees the relativity of academic knowledge and NGO practice, one that recognizes rural communities and food producers as the fundamental pillar of agroecology,” according to Freddy Congo, an Ecuadorean popular educator with the Union of the Peoples of Moreles (UPM) in Mexico, winner of the Rural Vermont’s Agroecology, Education & Organizing Fellowship Award, and participant in the course.

A small group having a discussion seated on the lawn
A meeting of the Andes Community of Practice in 2022 in Puembo, Ecuador

In all three countries, the Agroecology Support Team works directly with universities, research centers and local NGOs carrying out community- and territory-level processes of agricultural research using methods like farmer research networks, agroecology peasant schools, as well as seed-saving and agrobiodiversity research.

Knowledge co-creation, mobilization, and exchange among these projects is one of the goals of our work, so a central theme of the course in on fostering participatory methodologies.

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We need spaces that connect us in a broad and diverse fabric, in order to recognize the diverse ways of perceiving agroecologies on the road to food sovereignty, the emancipation of our peoples, social justice and the good life. The course Agroecology for Life is one of those spaces, where a variety of ways of thinking, feeling and being people are shared in cooperation, co-construction and co-learning.

Tabaré Tonalli Aquimín Duché García

Postdoc at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in Mexico and course participant

 

Georgina Catacora Vargas, the Bolivian agroecologist, president of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA) and guest lecturer in the course, argues that “our methodologies are the lenses with which we characterize and reflect on reality, as well as the reflection of our epistemological position, the way in which we (co-)create knowledge.” Her guest appearance in the course was a highlight mentioned by many participants in course evaluations.

Beyond the conceptual and methodological aspects of the Agroecology for Life course, an emerging property of the effort is the idea of building and consolidating a learning community: a space for mutual respect, cross-pollination, and exchange. As Renato Pardo, a course participant and program officer at PROSUCO in Bolivia, put it, the strength of the course is in the “possibility of sharing experiences with other institutions and other professionals working on similar themes.”

We’ve been so pleased with how the course has turned out, and have experienced and observed so much growth and integration as a result. We’ve also received positive feedback from our partners. In a recent communication, Claire Nicklin, Andes CoP Regional Representative for CRFS, noted “the IFA team did a fantastic job of facilitating a warm and collaborative space for practitioners to meet and discuss agroecological transitions.”

The course was co-facilitated by Gabriela Bucini, Nils McCune and Ernesto Méndez.

Update from the Field: Studying Soil Health with Farmers in Mexico & Guatemala

We’ve added a new update about our work on soil health with coffee farmers to our project blog that tracks our Participatory Action Research process with producer organizations in Mexico and Central America. To read the new field update, please click here.

Two months ago, our tenacious project teams in Mexico and Guatemala visited more than 50 smallholder coffee farms as part of what we’ve come to call the Suelos project (“suelo” is Spanish for soil). These activities are officially supported under a project called “Towards a regional vision for agroecological soil management in the coffee landscapes of Mesoamerica” with funding through a Gund Institute Catalyst Award.

The objective of the project, in short, is to co-produce knowledge about the relationships between the structure of coffee agroecosystems, indicators of soil health, coffee productivity and coffee cup quality. This knowledge will be the basis for articulating a local plan of action for protecting soil health in coffee-producing landscapes.

To read more about our recent visits to the coffee plots (and about our Participatory Action Research process in general), head over to our project blog.

Centering Agroecology in the Conservation of Biodiversity: UVM joins our allies at COP15 in Montreal to push for change

Centering Agroecology in the Conservation of Biodiversity:
UVM joins our allies at COP15 in Montreal to push for change

This week, a coalition of organizations including UVM’s Agroecology & Livelihoods Collaborative (soon to be the Institute for Agroecology) heads to Montreal to participate in the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15, for short). 

The COP15 convenes governments from around the world to agree to a new set of goals for nature over the next decade through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and is structured around a range of high-level negotiations and side events.    

Click on the image above to read the policy brief

Our coalition’s mission at this event is to emphasize the critical importance of including agroecology within the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Agroecology and its focus on agricultural biodiversity is critical to all three pillars of the CBD: conservation, sustainable use, and equity, and must be incorporated in Target 10 of the Global Biodiversity Framework. As substantiated by scientific evidence, agroecology represents an unparalleled opportunity to address the losses to biodiversity being driven by industrialized food systems. In addition to its contributions to biodiversity conservation, agroecology delivers multiple co-benefits: climate change adaptation, food security, ecosystems resilience, sustainable livelihoods and human rights.

With the inclusion of language that proposes concrete solutions, we can transform from damaging industrial global food systems to biodiverse agroecology. To that end, the coalition has developed a policy brief that lays out how agricultural biodiversity and agroecology can be integrated into the Convention on Biological Diversity. We will also hold a side event on Thursday, December 8th, at 1:15 EST called “Missing the Mark? Biodiversity Targets Risk Failure without Agroecology” (see flyer below and click here to register for the meeting online).

How can you get involved?

If you have questions, please contact anyone from UVM’s ALC team (Janica Anderzén, Matt Burke, Maya Moore, Michelle Nikfarjam, Seanna McGraw and Martha Caswell).to

Each One Teach One Agroecology Encounter brings together activists, farmers, and farmworkers from the Global North and South

Tammy Harris of SAAFON facilitating a session at the Encounter. Photo Credit: Jesús Vázquez

The use of agroecology to confront social injustice was at the center of discussion during this summer’s Each One Teach One Agroecology Encounter, a three-day event convened by the organization Rural Vermont as a celebration of La Vía Campesina’s 30-year anniversary. The Encounter brought together around 140 activists, farmers, and farmworkers from throughout the Americas at the Center for Grassroots Organizing in Marshfield, Vermont. Those attending included local Vermont organic farmers, migrant farm workers and climate migrants; members of the Black agrarian movement from the Southern US; urban farmers and youth of all ages; and delegates from national and international peasant and farmworker organizations (see full list below). The Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative (ALC) was on hand to gather stories, support organizers, and facilitate participation by international guests.

The format of the event was part community discussion, part skill-share. Local farmers and community leaders shared workshops on draft animals, the solidarity economy, herbalism, work brigades, printing, and participatory pizza-making. While participants held in common the goal of healthier communities, ecosystems, and societies, the unique perspectives present contributed to dynamic conversations where distinct ways of understanding and using agroecology were explored.

Photo Credit: Jesús Vázquez

Attendees also looked to the future, envisioning a system of Via Campesina North American schools of agroecology (NASA) where people from grassroots organizations would build skills in both the productive and community-organizing dimensions of agroecology. This approach is inspired by existing and successful models of agroecology and movement-building schools in other regions of La Via Campesina. The schools provide technical agroecological training, popular political education, and traditional ecological knowledge, while being rooted in the specific needs of local communities. The dialogues at the Agroecology Encounter revealed questions about access and audience and, in particular, a demand for educational processes that meet the needs of young people of color who don’t currently have access to farmland. These topics will re-emerge in additional listening sessions planned for the months to come.

The event is part of process that began with a Campesinx-a-Campesinx gathering in 2014 in Florida, which gave rise to around a dozen encounters of the People’s Agroecology Process in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico between 2014-2020. In 2021, the ALC partnered with the People’s Agroecology Process to offer an advanced course in people’s agroecology – using technology to further enrich the conversation and relationships even when gathering in person wasn’t an option. The ALC engages in movement activities as part of its Participatory Action Research approach and its commitment to transformative collective impact through scholar-activism and long-term, horizontal relationships.

National and International Peasant and Farmworker Organizations Represented at the Encounter: Family Farm Defenders (USA), Small and Heritage Black Farmers & Southeastern African American Farmers’ Organic Network (USA), National Family Farm Coalition (USA), Migrant Justice (USA), Farmworkers Association of Florida (USA), Union Paysanne (Canada), National Farmers Union (Canada), Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autónomas (Mexico), Unión de Pueblos de Morelos (Mexico), Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (Nicaragua), Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, Indígenas y Negras (Ecuador), and the Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Rurales e Indígenas (Chile)
Photos Credit: Jesús Vázquez