Agroecology Empowers Communities
We understand agroecology as a series of agricultural principles that have been in existence and practiced by communities throughout millenary times. But it is also a series of political principles that allow communities to develop collective consciousness about restoring bodies, families, communities, and the land in which they live.
Agroecology is a series of tools and knowledge that don’t cost us money, which allow us to work with what we have. We have seeds in the community that are inherited from grandparents. The other day
we had a meeting where we shared the seeds and organized a conversation where different generations of families came together and developed consciousness about the importance of their family seeds. When the younger generation and the older generation came into one room to talk about seeds, a whole new world developed.
Food sovereignty is the concept. Agroecology is the plan of action. Agroecology is a vehicle to bring about justice to communities that have been disempowered, primarily by private corporations taking ownership of the food supply. At the local level, our food supply — before our small efforts — depended on Walmart. Now, at least we have a few farms that are producing hundreds of pounds of food that did not exist before.
Agroecology allows you to reclaim the freedom to build your own sovereignty, your own family’s independence — particularly for women. I think that as a community, we are continuously put in the situation of demanding justice: for the women disappeared, for the workers in the maquiladoras, for the men and women crossing the border, for the militarized violence.
“Sovereignty” gives us the agency to restore the community’s dignity through the resources that we have.