Mountains and Cornfields. The drive to Rancho Lum Ha'
During our 45-minute drive to Rancho Lum Ha', I gaze out the window of Chelo's pickup truck to see the mountainous landscape and the expansive fields corn. Monoculture corn is the most common agricultural production in the region. This, of course, is produced with many chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which eventually degrades land. You can see local people carrying fertilizer pumps on their backs, filled with agrochemicals. One day we saw a child about 10 years old wearing a fertilizer pump on his back as he rode his bike down the road.
I'm currently volunteering on an agroecological farm called Rancho Lum Ha that doesn't use chemical fertilizers or pesticides. They aim to share agroecological practices with local farmers in the region. When Rancho Lum Ha' began in 2018, the soil on their land was also completely degraded from the previous owners' consistent use of chemical fertilizers. They had to restore the soil quality by building up organic matter, starting compost production, and planting a diversity of resilient plants that could start to add nutrients to the soil. It was a long process to build up the soil fertility again.
I share a lot about sustainable, agroecological practices in farming and the many organizations and initiatives that support them, but why is there such an abundance of chemical fertilizer use in the first place? Why have so many rural and indigenous communities lost their native practices and adopted the use of chemicals that damage their health and their land?
This has to do with global influences such as the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution began after World War II in the 1940s-60s when agronomists in the United States (notably, Norman Borlaug) experimented with new varieties of wheat, rice and corn that could be more resistant and productive. They were able to double or triple their production with these new crop varieties such as the "dwarf wheat variety" in Mexico. The intention was to end hunger and malnutrition by producing more in less space. However, these high-producing varieties of crops relied on heavy inputs like fertilizers, particularly nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides, and abundant water irrigation. And while initially there was an increase in crop productivity with these adapted varieties, after decades of continual pesticide use, yields began to drop. However, these practices were engrained in communities over decades, and these destructive, chemical-based practices and poor land management continue on today.
The Green Revolution didn't happen just in Mexico (although it began there). The United States also carried out Green Revolutions in other Asian, African, and Latin American countries which fundamentally changed agricultural practices around the world. Prominent activists like Vandana Shiva from India inform us about the negative impacts these policies have had for the people and the environment in their countries.
The Green Revolution and other foreign policies have uprooted local, native practices of agricultural. Also many national agricultural policies have promoted chemical pesticides and provided them to farmers. The chemical fertilizer, pesticide, and seed industries are powerful and they influence many governments and global bodies. At the same time, however, there is more public awareness of the damage this is causing and there is more recognition that we need to recover sustainable practices that have been lost.
So, in an abbreviated nutshell, these are some of the reasons why agro-chemical and hybrid varieties of seeds have been engrained in rural communities not just in Chiapas, Mexico, but around the world. Every context is different and has different influences and nuances so it is important to look at the historical, social, ecological context of the region and community.
This is why making these agroecological practices available and accessible to local communities is both challenging and important work.
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