Agroecology Meeting 2018 April 6-9
By Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli
Last April 6-9, the FWAF hosted its Second Agroecology Meeting. The event was held in Apopka, but included visits to Fellsmere and Pierson where participants were able to get a glimpse of the community gardens we have been nurturing under the guidance of our agroecology specialist Pia Desangles and the rest of her team. The event represented an opportunity for different members of our communities and organizations to hold conversations where we could all share some of the knowledge about community agroecological practices and respect for our Mother Earth. Fittingly, this Encuentro's motto was "Community Knowledge Is community Power!"
The event was held at the YMCA's Camp Wewa in Apopka and was attended by members of our own community and from sister organizations members of La Vía Campesina and the Food Sovereignty Alliance who traveled from as far west as El Paso, as far north as Winnipeg, and as far east and south as Puerto Rico. Also present were our brothers and sisters from the Mississippi Association of Co-operatives. The setting at a camp provided the wonderful opportunity to spend more time together and getting to know one another as we ate, slept, and worked together, spurring at the same time conversations about how to create a just food system that empowers our communities to provide for our own sustenance.
Workshops
With that goal in mind, over the course of the weekend we participated in a series of workshops to help communities take steps to provide for their own foods individually or forming groups in their communities. Rather than lectures where one or two persons share their knowledge with a listening audience, workshops are spaces where a group of people can work through a problem or issue together, discussing, brainstorming, and coming up with solutions to a problem. Over the course of the weekend, there were six workshops of which attendees were able to pick three. These included "Biofertilizing and Composting,""Making Preserves," "Using Worms in Composting," "Traditional Remedies and Seedbeds," Plague control," and "CO-OP 101."
Darnella of the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives led the workshop on cooperatives as an economic system that empowers communities socially and economically. FWAF's Elvira and Claudia led a workshop on the use of herbs and teas as traditional remedies for everyday ailments. For his part, Pastor led the workshop on the use of worms in composting. The workshops highlighted thus the theme of the Encuentro, that the traditional knowledge that exists within our communities has real life applicability, and we must share that knowledge with the rest of the community lest that knowledge be lost and we become dependent on the mainstream epistemology of health, nutrition, and well-being produced by profit-driven organizations with little interest in community well-being and more on increasing their quarterly earnings.
Work Brigades
The Encuentro also provided the opportunity for attendees to spend time working together in three of our communities: Apopka, Fellsmere, and Pierson, where volunteer attendees signed up to help clean and improve the community gardens in those areas. While we spent time at camp in workshops, working together provided another opportunity for new conversations to start and mutually share knowledge about keeping and maintaining our gardens. In Apopka, we also helped a community member start her own garden. Loosening dirt, mixing in compost, weeding, working and sweating together are the kinds of activities that help people form a common bond and opens them up to sharing some of the experiences. In that setting, we heard from our brother and sisters about how they cook certain vegetables, how they keep some weeds from reappearing, and how to grow some plants together symbiotically.
Plenary Sessions
Even with all othe workshops and work brigades we still found time to spend time together and address the root cause for the Encuentro. Agroecology allows us to have healthier choices in our food, but agroecology is not something new. Perhaps the name we now use is, but agroecology is the practice of ancestral agricultural and horticultural practices. Agreocology is about maintaining that knowledge and regaining it where it has slipped out of our reach to allow us to produce our own food. By producing our own food in the best quality for our communities we reclaim our food sovereignty from entities that produce it for us at the quality they see fit to increase their profits.
The plenary sessions in the course of the Encuentro allowed us to explore and proclaim that theme at times when we were all together. In the process we shared the experience of the birth and growth of the FWAF through some of the founding members, as well as the support of the religious allies who knew when they saw injustice and decided to get involved. We also heard from our brothers and sisters in Mississippi and Puerto Rico and the steps they are taking to reclaim their own food sovereignty. Interspersed in these dialogues were clues and suggestions on how we can all help each other in our fight for food justice and food sovereignty.
A lot has changed since the first Encuentro in 2015. Since then a new community garden was established in Apopka through the joint effort of the Hope CommUnity Center and the FWAF. Agroecology has gained some traction as more people realize the benefits of a sustainable, community-centered food system. Community gardens are sprouting in cities throughout the country. There have also been some negative changes that may yet prove a positive catalyst for agroecology. The 2016 elections have resulted in greater involvement from members of different communities across the country. The current administration has made it a priority to roll back regulations meant to protect farmworkers and the general public from pesticides. Those changes are likely to spur interest in an alternative food system. And while agroecology is a community centered approach to food justice and food sovereignty, communication between different communities will serve for greater community empowerment.
Workshops
With that goal in mind, over the course of the weekend we participated in a series of workshops to help communities take steps to provide for their own foods individually or forming groups in their communities. Rather than lectures where one or two persons share their knowledge with a listening audience, workshops are spaces where a group of people can work through a problem or issue together, discussing, brainstorming, and coming up with solutions to a problem. Over the course of the weekend, there were six workshops of which attendees were able to pick three. These included "Biofertilizing and Composting,""Making Preserves," "Using Worms in Composting," "Traditional Remedies and Seedbeds," Plague control," and "CO-OP 101."
Work Brigades
Plenary Sessions
Even with all othe workshops and work brigades we still found time to spend time together and address the root cause for the Encuentro. Agroecology allows us to have healthier choices in our food, but agroecology is not something new. Perhaps the name we now use is, but agroecology is the practice of ancestral agricultural and horticultural practices. Agreocology is about maintaining that knowledge and regaining it where it has slipped out of our reach to allow us to produce our own food. By producing our own food in the best quality for our communities we reclaim our food sovereignty from entities that produce it for us at the quality they see fit to increase their profits.
A lot has changed since the first Encuentro in 2015. Since then a new community garden was established in Apopka through the joint effort of the Hope CommUnity Center and the FWAF. Agroecology has gained some traction as more people realize the benefits of a sustainable, community-centered food system. Community gardens are sprouting in cities throughout the country. There have also been some negative changes that may yet prove a positive catalyst for agroecology. The 2016 elections have resulted in greater involvement from members of different communities across the country. The current administration has made it a priority to roll back regulations meant to protect farmworkers and the general public from pesticides. Those changes are likely to spur interest in an alternative food system. And while agroecology is a community centered approach to food justice and food sovereignty, communication between different communities will serve for greater community empowerment.
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