The Agroecology Movement and the FWAF

Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli

Global Interdependence?

We are constantly being told that our world is increasingly interconnected. It is a feat to be lauded that we can get food from anywhere in the world. Take a trip to your grocery store and you will find that your grapes come from Chile, your cantaloupe was grown in Guatemala, and your pomegranate in Israel. A 2013 article published in Scientific American tracked changes in the import of produce to the United States, highlighting our increasing reliance on foreign produce in our daily diet. That report compared fruits and vegetables shipped to American distribution centers in the months of April and September of 1998, 2005, and 2012. Between those years in the month of April the US went from importing 30 percent of the produce consumed to 39 percent. In the month of September, as winter approaches, our imports between 1998 and 2012 jumped from 17 to 29 percent.

In 2014, Aleda Roth, a researcher whose work centers on supply chain management, found a global shift in our import markets taking place moving east to Asia. In a story featured in Texas A&M Today, Roth warned that although these shifts may save money and increase profits for US production companies, changing markets could also spell health hazards for consumers, noting that lax regulations in hygiene, worker safety, and environmental protection in emerging markets do not meet the same production standards implemented in western economies.

That is only one of the disadvantages of the global corporate agricultural complex. Unfortunately, the current prevalent agricultural system seeks profit before well-being. The trade agreements that have brought greater access to food from different parts of the world have as their primary goal to enrich producers. While we seemingly are getting greater access to a variety of foods, this access is increasingly controlled by agricultural conglomerates and shipping giants with contracts to move those crops between countries and continents. An additional consequence is our greater reliance on fewer crops and greater vulnerability to crop failure that can result in greater market volatility. This is the stuff that famines are made of. When crops fail and we have no other source of food, we risk running into food shortages. More relevant to our discussion are the famines caused by settler colonial enterprises that used starvation as a method for subjugation in Africa in the 18th century as documented by Historian Mike Davis in his 2002 volume Late Victorian Holocausts.

Food Sovereignty

Just like colonial powers were able to control food access and used that control to colonize African nations three centuries ago, corporate control of food sources today are contriving our dependence on the food they sell. The agroecology movement aims to reclaim control over access to our own food in a sustainable way. Agroecology helps individuals and families to grow their own food as part of a community where we all know where our food came from, and we know that if it didn't come from our own plot and sweat, it came from our neighbor's. It means control of our food in our hands and away from corporate agribusiness. It means control of our lives!

Agroecology also has the added benefits of bringing healthier food to our table and bringing us into a closer relationship with our food and our community. At the same time, food sovereignty in agroecology is also a rejection of the Neoliberal, capitalist world system. Through its focus on indigenous farming practices and transmission of knowledge from community to community, it allows for the many voices that make up the world to to live on their own terms, making use of the knowledge their ancestors gained over generations and across millennia. Through the use organic material to fertilize crops, it allows the soil to revitalize and regenerate the nutrients that go into our produce, dispensing with the expensive chemicals that harm our bodies at a time when decreasing regulation has given a free hand to corporate agribusiness to run their products untested and untethered, where we are their guinea pigs.

Agroecology has also proven to be a viable solution against climate change. Growing a Revolution, a recent publication by University of Washington Professor David Montgomery, addresses the issue of climate change through soil regeneration in a process that also increases food production. This approach to agriculture also makes agroecological practices more sustainable than the current models that gave us the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and are still giving us pesticide laden produce. Moreover, the community focus of agroecology reduces the carbon footprint procuring our food leaves on the environment, as our food is produced in our own communities. Agriculture for Impact, a nonprofit organization seeking agricultural development solutions for Africa has estimated the impact of climate change would be disastrous in that continent, where the worst effects of climate change would be felt.

The FWAF and Community Gardens

That very local nature of agroecology ensures communities are invested in the production of their own food instating solutions to the hold corporate agribusiness have on our lives and to secure access to all members of the community which can bring greater food diversity to our table. Community gardens are already sprouting up everywhere in the US and in communities throughout the world where they have always been a way of life. With the renewed appreciation of the benefits of community-oriented agricultural practices, farming communities all over the world are learning about each other's efforts and communicating to learn about their counterparts' farming practices.

The Farmworker Association of Florida is doing its part to make sure members of our community are aware of the viability of these practices, especially when many of our members come from farming communities in their countries of origin and in the US in addition to the experience they have amassed over years of experience working in US agriculture that a times spans generations. Often they have fought to maintain their farming practices in the face of increased pressure from corporate agribusiness who insist that their seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides be used exclusively in addition to regulations that favor those same large agricultural enterprises. As of this writing, four of our five area offices has its own community gardens where plot holders and the FWAF plant fruits and vegetables like avocado, sunflower, watermelon, chilli peppers, and prickly pear cactus.

The first of our gardens opened in Fellsmere in 2010. There is also a garden in Pierson, and one in Homestead, where our office has an additional plot next to the office devoted to medicinal plants and herbs such as aloe, chamomile, and anise. Our Apopka garden opened this year in collaboration with our long time friends and allies at the Hope CommUnity Center. These gardens have been secured thanks to the support of local governments and nonprofit organizations who have donated unused or underutilized parcels.

Ready to Plant?

If you are ready to take up a hoes and reclaim your food sovereignty and you live close to one of the four area offices that already has a community garden, contact that office and inquire about becoming part of the agrecology community. You can find contact information for the office closest to you in the FWAF's website. If you don't live close to one of our area offices, talk to your neighbors and other members of your community. You may find that there is already an interest there. Perhaps some of the members of your community already grow some plants in their own yards or even in pots. You can exchange ideas and seeds.

Even if you are not ready to take up a hoe, there are other ways you can support the agroecology movement in your area. You can shop locally grown produce, especially if you know that those fruits and vegetables were grown by your neighbors. While you may not be able to start planting yourself, your commitment to buying local produce goes to great lengths to reduce carbon emissions. More importantly, it puts you on your path to food liberation and sovereignty.

We plan on taking this issue up again, as it is an issue in which the FWAF strongly believes. We hope you return to this page.