This article is adapted from AQ’s special report on food security in Latin America. To see other organizations working on this issue, click here.
SAN MIGUEL SUCHIXTEPEC, Mexico — Growing up in the rural Oaxacan town of San Baltazar Chichicapam, Faustino Hernández, 46, would help his parents grow corn, beans and squash on their plot of land. The produce fed the family, with enough left over to sell.
As an adult, though, he hasn’t been able to keep up that practice. He took different jobs in a bigger city, and planting got harder as rains became more infrequent. One recent morning, in Oaxaca’s damp mountain air, he picked up where he’d left off and learned new techniques. Hernández joined a hands-on lesson on how to plant and maintain a huerto, or vegetable garden, using only organic materials—no herbicides, synthetic pesticides or chemical fertilizers. He plans to teach what he learned to the students at the school where he works as a cleaner.
The workshop was organized by local NGO Mbis Bin, which means “seeds for sowing” in Zapotec. Mbis Bin is a community enterprise dedicated to the research, development and creation of agricultural products. The organization also provides training to promote sustainable agriculture and addresses food insecurity, which affects one in four people in Oaxaca state.
Co-founder and president Blanca Sánchez grew up seeing farmers use chemical fertilizers in her town of San Miguel Suchixtepec, where there was a common perception that these were superior to natural alternatives. After studying rural development planning in Puebla, she and three others founded Mbis Bin to help spread alternative models of planting.
That morning’s workshop was part of the Harvesting Resilience project, funded by the Citi Foundation and NUUP. The 18 participants, all residents of San Miguel Suchixtepec and nearby towns, ranged from people in their 60s to small children learning with their parents. On a hilltop plot overlooking a valley, they planted an organic huerto from scratch, following the milpa method, a Mesoamerican planting technique in which a variety of fruits and vegetables are interspersed in the same plot.
Among them was María Sánchez Hernández, 63. When it came time to add pesticides to the soil, Mbis Bin co-founder César Ramírez brought out a low-cost organic product. María Hernández shared the method she had learned from her now 84-year-old mother: adding ashes to the soil. Both work great, Hernández assured. And if all goes well, another 18 sustainable huertos will be planted in this corner of Oaxaca.
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