It was mid-February, and in Oaxaca City, Mexico, temperatures were just starting to climb into the 80s. Spring is the hot season here, and in addition to weathering the heat, my partner and I were also in the midst of a move from the home we’d rented near the city center for two years to a little house out in the countryside.

Our spacious spot in the city had served us well, but we had become increasingly worried about the one main issue we had faced there: the severe water shortage experienced by many of Oaxaca City’s approximately 300,000 inhabitants. For several months every dry season, we and our neighbors received municipal water only once every 42 days—a situation that has become the new normal over the past few years. When this water is sent through the city’s aging system of pipes and arrives in private households, Oaxaca dwellers store the water in giant rooftop water tanks called tinacos—or, even better, in large underground cisterns—in order to have continual access to water throughout the month. But even though my partner and I rented a house with a large 10,000-liter-capacity cistern—and although we took daily measures to curb our water consumption—more frequently than not, our cistern routinely ran dry before the next water delivery, leaving us without water for days at a time: Hello, washcloth “showers” using bottled water purchased from the corner store.

Lauren Rothman with her partner and dogs.

When we looked for a new house to rent outside the densely populated city center, we reviewed listings located in areas known to have more regular water delivery. We found a new space, but with just two days left to clean the large house from top to bottom in order to recoup our security deposit, we woke to bone-dry taps. We hurriedly contacted several pipa companies— water trucks that extract the liquid from private wells and deliver between 3,500 and 10,000 liters at a time; most of them, completely at capacity shuttling water around the municipality, never responded. Those who did quoted us outrageous prices and couldn’t even deliver until several days later. So, our final hours in our city home saw us toting heavy 20-liter plastic bottles of water up our hot asphalt street, in order to be able to wash the windows and mop the floors before moving out.

Day Zero is coming

Even those far from Oaxaca City have likely heard about Mexico’s headline-making droughts and Mexico City’s dire lack of municipal water. That enormous megatropolis—home to an estimated 22 million people—is possibly facing a “Day Zero”—or complete loss of water—as early as this month. A one-two punch of a combination of climate change and rapid urban growth is quickly draining the aquifer underneath North America’s largest city, according to Scientific American, and the problem is far from unique to either Mexico City or Oaxaca City, with historic water scarcity affecting 30 of 32 of the country’s states or almost 131 million people. 

To get a sense of the situation here in Oaxaca City—and, by extension, the entire state, home to approximately four million inhabitants—I spoke with Juan José Consejo Dueñas, director of INSO, the Instituto de la Naturaleza y la Sociedad de Oaxaca (Oaxacan Institute of Nature and Society). Established in 1991, the civil association supports communities across Oaxaca in projects focusing on environmental conservation and, since 2003, Aguaxaca has been the association’s main project. The goal is to secure consistent sources of clean water through the restoration of potable water networks, installation of absorption wells and rainwater collection systems.

Juan José Consejo Dueñas, director of INSO, photographed at his office downtown. Photography by Lauren Rothman.

“Water doesn’t really need an explanation,” says Consejo as we sit around a large table in his office scattered with informational handouts and books published by INSO. “It’s essential for life: not just biological life—we are all basically water—but also at an ecological level. There is no ecological system that doesn’t require water, and it’s essential for any social system.” 

It’s not a shortage, it’s a loss

So, how did Oaxaca’s water situation get to where it is today? First of all, Consejo is quick to correct my usage of the term “shortage.” “There is no water shortage,” he says, explaining that the local climate is characterized by a dry season of little to no rainfall (typically November through April) and a wet season of abundant rainfall (typically May through October). “We can’t speak of scarcity when what we really have is an excess— a destructive excess—of water for many months.”

During the rainy season, says Consejo, an average of 88 cubic meters of rain falls every second during a heavy rainstorm, enough to fill 88 1,000 litre tinacos. The real problem, says Consejo, is the difference, over time, in the way this rainfall is absorbed by the earth and filters down into the underground water table. In a functioning “hydrosocial” water cycle, about a quarter of each rainfall should be absorbed back into the earth. But in Oaxaca, where rapid urban development has led to a huge increase in paved roads and unchecked deforestation and where a robust mining industry has altered the physical landscape, water infiltration has been severely reduced, to about 15 percent. 

“It’s an enormously destructive process, drastically altering the soil and requiring an enormous quantity of water,” says Consejo of the open-pit mining industry in Oaxaca, particularly the mining of gold and silver. Since 2003, residents of the Oaxacan community of Capulálpam de Méndez have railed against the government-approved mining of minerals there by the corporation La Natividad, claiming that the activities have drained 13 of the area’s aquifers as their clean water has been diverted towards mining operations. Earlier this month, widespread protests by citizens shut down access to the rural town, and local participation in the national presidential election on June 2 could not proceed. 

A “pipa” truck delivering potable water in Oaxaca’s colonial city center. Photography by Lauren Rothman.

In an analysis of land coverage, INSO found that, in 2005, about 50 square kilometers of Oaxaca’s urban center were paved, in comparison to 1980, when about 10 square kilometers were paved, with other coverings including agriculture, forest and pastures. All that pavement causes rainwater to just run off, instead of sinking into the ground, and prevents it from settling into natural pools and man-made dams. 

“We lower absorption, we raise runoff, we lower evaporation, and then what do we do with any clean water we have left? We pollute it,” says Consejo, referring to the practice of mixing pure water with human waste, as well as all the chemical runoff present in the soil.

Searching for solutions

SOAPA, Sistema Operador de los Servicios de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado (Drinking Water and Sewage Services), is the state governmental agency responsible for the distribution of municipal water to city residents. While the agency did not respond to requests for an interview, I was able to speak with Elsa Ortíz Rodríguez, secretary of the city’s department of Environment and Climate Change. She says the municipal system of underground pipes that deliver the water distributed by SOAPA is extremely old, built more than 40 years ago—and rapidly and haphazardly expanded since then. “In some spots, the pipes are fractured and leak water underground,” says Ortiz. “With old pipes, you also have to think about rust, which can also reduce the final amount of water that’s delivered.”

Secretary of Environment and Climate Change Elsa Ortíz Rodríguez, photographed at her downtown office in front of trees slated to be planted throughout Oaxaca City. Photography by Lauren Rothman.

In order to address the water scarcity issue, Ortiz’s department finances a variety of projects focusing primarily on reforestation within the city limits. However, she admits that the usual impediments have limited the impact of these projects over the 2.5-year course of her administration, which will turn over in another six months: a lack of funding and a lack of coordination among city, state and national governments.

As Juan José Consejo Dueñas explains, governments tend to propose complicated and expensive engineering projects to “solve” the water problem. In the case of Mexico City, the “solution” has been Cutzamala, a sprawling system that directs water to the metropolis from the river of the same name, located 100 kilometers away. Oaxaca’s government has proposed something similar: a grand engineering project to extract water from the Paso Ancho dam in the Mixteca region, located 100 kilometers south of the city. 

Because the Cutzamala system relies on a vast network of dams to store the water—and dams are subject to increased evaporation due to rising temperatures—it’s not the most efficient system. “We have the Mexico City model, which is exactly what we shouldn’t be doing,” says Consejo.

The bulletin board at INSO. Photography by Lauren Rothman.

Instead, Consejo says, the solution to the water problems faced by the region lies in redefining our relationship to water. One of INSO’s primary projects is a restored nature area in the community of San Andrés Huayápam, called El Pedregal. An operating permaculture center, El Pedregal features dry toilets, rainwater collection systems, humidity-preserving trenches,\ and other responsible water use projects. Generally, Oaxacan sentiment places little faith in the ability or desire of the government to suitably respond to the complex water issue, making grassroots initiatives such as El Pedregal all the more important. 

In my new home—located, incidentally, a stone’s throw from El Pedregal in the community of Huayápam—we receive municipal water at least once a week, sometimes twice. The area, at a higher elevation than the city, has been known throughout history for possessing clean water; its name, in the indigenous language Nahuatl, translates to “on the ocean,” referring to its large bodies of water. Even here, however, the water situation is by no means stable, with recent photos showing two of the area’s largest man-made dams at some of their lowest historical levels. 

Our move has alleviated most of the water issues we face, but moving is simply not an option for many families, nor would doing so solve the problem impacting millions around the country. This feeling of hopelessness has led to numerous protests around Oaxaca, with citizens demanding that SOAPA send more water. In mid-March, residents of the Monte Albán neighborhood close to Oaxaca’s world-famous restored pyramid site took to their streets to denounce more than 40 days without municipal water. Residents of the Figueroa neighborhood, near SOAPA’s downtown headquarters, followed suit a week later, making it clear that as long as widespread water mismanagement persists in this area, so too, will social unrest.

The post Mexican Cities and States Could Run Out of Water. What’s the Solution? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Era mediados de febrero y, en la Ciudad de Oaxaca, México, las temperaturas comenzaban a subir a los 80 grados Fahrenheit. La primavera es la temporada de calor aquí, y además de soportar el calor, mi pareja y yo estábamos en medio de una mudanza desde la casa que habíamos alquilado cerca del centro de la ciudad durante dos años, a una pequeña casa en el campo.

Nuestro espacioso lugar en la ciudad nos había servido bien, pero nos preocupaba cada vez más el principal problema que habíamos enfrentado allí: la grave escasez de agua que experimentan muchos de los aproximadamente 300,000 habitantes de la Ciudad de Oaxaca. Durante varios meses, en cada temporada seca, nosotros y nuestros vecinos recibíamos agua municipal solo una vez cada 42 días, una situación que se ha convertido en la nueva normalidad en los últimos años. Cuando esta agua se envía a través del envejecido sistema de tuberías de la ciudad y llega a los hogares privados, los habitantes de Oaxaca almacenan el agua en grandes tanques de agua en los techos llamados tinacos, o mejor aún, en grandes cisternas subterráneas, para tener acceso continuo al agua durante todo el mes. Pero, aunque mi pareja y yo rentábamos una casa con una gran cisterna de 10,000 litros de capacidad y tomábamos medidas diarias para reducir nuestro consumo de agua, con más frecuencia de lo que quisiéramos, nuestra cisterna se quedaba vacía antes de la siguiente entrega de agua, dejándonos sin agua durante días: Hola, “duchas” con toallitas usando agua embotellada comprada en la tienda de la esquina.

Lauren Rothman.

Cuando buscábamos una nueva casa para rentar fuera del densamente poblado centro de la ciudad, revisábamos listados ubicados en zonas conocidas por tener una entrega de agua más regular. Encontramos un nuevo lugar, pero con solo dos días restantes para limpiar la gran casa desde arriba hasta abajo para poder recuperar nuestro depósito, despertamos con los grifos completamente secos. Nos apresuramos a contactar a varias compañías de pipas, camiones de agua que extraen el líquido de pozos privados y entregan entre 3,500 y 10,000 litros a la vez; la mayoría de ellas, completamente ocupadas transportando agua por el municipio, nunca respondieron. Las que lo hicieron nos cotizaron precios escandalosamente elevados y ni siquiera podían entregar hasta varios días después. Así que nuestras últimas horas en la casa de la ciudad nos vieron cargando pesadas garrafones de 20 litros por nuestra calurosa calle de asfalto, para poder lavar las ventanas y trapear los pisos antes de mudarnos.

Se Acerca el “Día Cero”

Hasta los que viven lejos de la Ciudad de Oaxaca a lo mejor han escuchado de las sequías en México que aparecen en los titulares y de la grave falta de agua municipal en la Ciudad de México. Esa enorme megápolis, hogar de un estimado de 22 millones de personas, posiblemente enfrente un “Día Cero,” o una pérdida total de agua, tan pronto como este mes. Una combinación de cambio climático y rápido crecimiento urbano está drenando rápidamente el acuífero debajo de la ciudad más grande de América del Norte, según Scientific American, y el problema toca a muchos lugares más que la Ciudad de México o la Ciudad de Oaxaca, con una escasez de agua histórica que afecta a 30 de los 32 estados del país, o casi 131 millones de personas.

Para tener una idea de la situación aquí en la Ciudad de Oaxaca, y por extensión, en todo el estado, hogar de aproximadamente 4 millones de habitantes, hablé con Juan José Consejo Dueñas, el director del INSO, el Instituto de la Naturaleza y la Sociedad de Oaxaca. Establecida en 1991, esta asociación civil apoya a las comunidades de todo Oaxaca en proyectos enfocados en la conservación ambiental y, desde 2003, Aguaxaca ha sido el proyecto principal de la asociación. El objetivo es asegurar fuentes consistentes de agua limpia mediante la restauración de redes de agua potable, la instalación de pozos de absorción y sistemas de recolección de agua de lluvia.

Juan José Consejo Dueñas, director del INSO, en su oficina en el centro de Oaxaca.

“El agua casi que no se necesita explicar,” dice Consejo mientras nos sentamos alrededor de una gran mesa en su oficina, llena de folletos informativos y libros publicados por el INSO. “Es esencial para la vida: no solo para la vida biológica—somos básicamente agua—sino para el nivel ecológico. No hay ningún sistema ecológico que no requiere el agua, y es esencial para el sistema social.”

No es una escasez, es una pérdida

Entonces, ¿cómo surgió la situación actual del agua en Oaxaca? Antes que todo, Consejo rápidamente corrige mi uso del término “escasez.” “No hay escasez de agua,” dice, explicando que el clima local se caracteriza por una temporada seca con poca o nada de lluvia (típicamente de noviembre a abril) y una temporada húmeda con lluvias abundantes (típicamente de mayo a octubre). “No podemos hablar de escasez cuando en realidad lo que tenemos es un exceso—sobre todo un exceso destructivo—de agua en muchos meses.”

Durante la temporada de lluvias, explica Consejo, caen en promedio 88 metros cúbicos de lluvia por segundo durante una tormenta fuerte, lo suficiente para rellenar 88 tinacos de 1,000 litros cada uno. El verdadero problema, destaca Consejo, es la diferencia, a lo largo del tiempo, en la forma en que esta lluvia es absorbida por la tierra y se filtra hasta el acuífero subterráneo. En un ciclo “hidrosocial” funcional, aproximadamente una cuarta parte de cada lluvia debería infiltrarse en el suelo. Pero en Oaxaca, donde el rápido desarrollo urbano ha llevado a un gran aumento de calles pavimentadas y a una deforestación desenfrenada, y donde una robusta industria minera ha alterado el paisaje físico, la infiltración de agua se ha reducido severamente, a aproximadamente un 15 por ciento.

“Es un proceso enormemente destructivo porque implica un cambio muy drástico del uso de suelo y se requiere una enorme cantidad de agua,” dice Consejo, refiriéndose a la industria minera a cielo abierto en Oaxaca, particularmente la minería de oro y plata. Desde 2003, los residentes de la comunidad oaxaqueña de Capulálpam de Méndez han manifestado contra la minería de minerales aprobada por el gobierno de allí, llevada a cabo por la corporación La Natividad, alegando que las actividades han drenado 13 de los acuíferos de la zona, ya que su agua limpia ha sido desviada hacia las operaciones mineras. A principios de este mes, protestas generalizadas por parte de los ciudadanos cerraron el acceso al pueblo rural, y la participación local en la elección presidencial nacional del 2 de junio no pudo proceder.

Una pipa entregando agua potable en el centro colonial de Oaxaca.

En un análisis de la cobertura del suelo, INSO determinó que, en 2005, aproximadamente 50 kilómetros cuadrados del centro urbano de Oaxaca estaban pavimentados, en comparación con 1980, cuando unos 10 kilómetros cuadrados estaban pavimentados, con otras coberturas que incluían agricultura, bosques y pastizales. Todo ese pavimento hace que el agua de lluvia simplemente escurra, en lugar de infiltrarse en el suelo, y evita que se acumule en pozas naturales y presas hechas por el hombre.

Disminuimos infiltración, aumentamos escurrimiento, disminuimos evapotranspiración, y el cuarto es que las fuentes superficiales y también las del subsuelo las estamos contaminando,” comenta Consejo, refiriéndose a la práctica de mezclar agua pura con desechos humanos, así como a todos los productos químicos presentes en el suelo.

Buscando soluciones

SOAPA, Sistema Operador de los Servicios de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado, es la agencia gubernamental estatal responsable de la distribución de agua municipal a los residentes de la ciudad. Aunque la agencia no respondió a mi solicitud de entrevista, pude hablar con Elsa Ortíz Rodríguez, Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Cambio Climático de la ciudad. Ella explica que el sistema municipal de tuberías subterráneas que distribuyen el agua de SOAPA es extremadamente antiguo, construido hace más de 40 años, y expandido rápidamente y desordenadamente desde entonces. 

“En algunos lugares la tubería ya está vieja y está fracturada,” dice Ortíz. “E incluso cuando estás hablando de tubería vieja, estás hablando de oxidaciones que pueden de alguna forma aminorar la calidad del agua.”

Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Cambio Climático Elsa Ortíz Rodríguez, en su oficina en el centro, delante de unos árboles que se sembrarán por Oaxaca.

Para abordar el problema de la escasez de agua, el departamento de Ortíz financia una variedad de proyectos centrados principalmente en la reforestación dentro de la ciudad. Sin embargo, admite que los impedimentos habituales han limitado el impacto de estos proyectos durante los 2.5 años de su administración, que terminará en seis meses: la falta de financiación y la falta de coordinación entre el gobierno metropolitano, estatal y nacional.

Como explica Juan José Consejo Dueñas, los gobiernos tienden a proponer proyectos de ingeniería complicados y costosos para “resolver” el problema del agua. En el caso de la Ciudad de México, la “solución” ha sido Cutzamala, un extenso sistema que dirige agua a la metrópolis desde el río del mismo nombre, ubicado a 100 kilómetros de distancia. El gobierno de Oaxaca ha propuesto algo parecido: un gran proyecto de ingeniería para extraer agua de la presa Paso Ancho en la región de la Mixteca, ubicada a 100 kilómetros al sur de la ciudad.

Debido a que el sistema Cutzamala depende de una vasta red de presas para almacenar el agua, y porque las presas están sujetas a una mayor evaporación debido al aumento de las temperaturas, no es el sistema más eficiente. “Ya tenemos el modelo de la Ciudad de México de lo que no se debe hacer, osea aquí podríamos haberlo hecho mejor en vez de pensar, ‘ay, ¿como lo hicieron allá?’” comenta Consejo.

La cartelera en las oficinas del INSO.

En cambio, Consejo cree que la solución a los problemas de agua que enfrenta la región radica en redefinir nuestra relación con el agua. Uno de los proyectos principales del INSO es un área natural restaurada en la comunidad de San Andrés Huayápam, llamado El Pedregal. Un centro de permacultura funcional, El Pedregal cuenta con baños secos, sistemas de recolección de agua de lluvia, zanjas de infiltración y otros proyectos de uso responsable del agua. En general, el sentimiento oaxaqueño no confía mucho en la capacidad o el deseo del gobierno para responder adecuadamente al complejo problema del agua, lo que hace que iniciativas de base como El Pedregal sean aún más importantes.

En mi nuevo hogar—ubicado, por cierto, a un paso del Pedregal en la comunidad de Huayápam—recibimos agua municipal al menos una vez a la semana, hasta dos veces. La zona, a una elevación más alta que la ciudad, ha sido conocida a lo largo de la historia por poseer agua limpia abundante; su nombre, en la lengua indígena náhuatl, se traduce como “sobre el mar”, refiriéndose a sus grandes cuerpos de agua. Sin embargo, incluso aquí, la situación del agua no es estable, con fotos recientes mostrando que dos de las presas artificiales más grandes de la zona están en niveles históricamente bajos.

Nuestra mudanza ha aliviado la mayoría de los problemas de agua que enfrentamos, pero mudarse simplemente no es una opción para muchas familias, ni resolvería el problema que afecta a millones en todo el país. Este sentimiento de desesperanza ha llevado a numerosas protestas en Oaxaca, con ciudadanos exigiendo que el SOAPA envíe más agua. A mediados de marzo, residentes de la colonia de Monte Albán, cerca del famoso sitio de pirámides restauradas de Oaxaca, salieron a las calles para denunciar más de 40 días sin agua municipal. Los residentes de la colonia Figueroa, cerca de la sede central del SOAPA en el centro, hicieron igual una semana después, subrayando que mientras persista la mala gestión del agua en esta zona, también persistirá la agitación social.

The post Ciudades y estados mexicanos podrían quedarse sin agua. ¿Cuál es la solución? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Here in Oaxaca, the southwestern Mexican state known for rich cultural traditions ranging from intricate artisan goods to vibrant music and dance, the veneration for corn is apparent when surveying some of the area’s favorite foods. You might greet your day here with a steaming mug of atole, a sweetened corn gruel akin to a thinned-out porridge; enjoy a midmorning snack of memelas, thick corn tortillas swiped with pork lard and a variety of other toppings; and, at dinnertime, crunch into a tlayuda, an oversized tortilla stuffed with mozzarella-like quesillo cheese and griddled over hot coals until crisp. And if, for some reason, the Oaxacan adoration of corn wasn’t glaringly obvious, a stroll through the area’s yearly Feria Estatal de la Agrobiodiversidad—the state fair of agrobiodiversity—clears the matter up in no time. 

This much-anticipated daylong event, which aims to both promote and protect Oaxaca’s agricultural richness, takes place every year in late November or early December. This year, the fair opened its doors on Saturday, December 2, in the community of San Pablo de Mitla, located about an hour’s drive east of the capital, Oaxaca City. A multisensory celebration of local crops ranging from sweet potatoes to medicinal herbs to amaranth, the Fería naturally has a heavy presence of corn. This year, visitors to the fair—who range from foodie members of the public to agronomy students to biologists and more—were greeted by an elaborate arch bedecked in multicolored corn kernels and flowerlike dried husks, with a mosaic-style image depicting a woman with long braids emerging from an ear of corn.

Visitors to the fair admire offerings from the mountainous Sierra Mixe region of Oaxaca. (Photo: Lauren Rothman)

Passing through the archway, visitors arrived under a big white tent where more than 500 farmers from across the state and a handful from out of state displayed their colorful, edible wares. Sprawled out on the ground atop well-worn petates (woven-fiber mats) or seated on low stools, the farmers showed off their hard-earned ears of corn, yes, but also laid out carefully arranged piles of smooth, shiny beans, bowls of bright red and yellow chile peppers, verdant heaps of string beans and many more crops. This year, according to to the Secretaría de Fomento Agroalimentario y Desarrollo Rural—the governmental body that’s part of a multigroup organizing committee that puts the fair together—more than 500 expositors belonging to 16 indigenous ethnic groups were present, bringing with them 35 of Mexico’s 64 native variants of corn alongside other important crops.

In Mexico, as in the rest of the modern world, biologically diverse traditional agriculture is increasingly being crowded out by hybrid and genetically modified crops that can withstand heavy applications of industrial herbicides and pesticides. For many millennia, the land of the milpa—an interdependent, mutually beneficial growing system of corn, beans, squash and the class of wild-growing greens collectively known as quelites—the country, since the so-called Green Revolution of the 1950s and 60s, has increasingly shifted to vast, chemical-dependent monocultures of crops, including corn, limes, papaya and single-species forests grown for harvesting timber. 

A kaleidoscope of native corn varieties, plus colorful beans in a range of shades. (Photo: Lauren Rothman)

The idea for the Fería, now in its 11th year, was born as a response to this ecological crisis, which necessarily endangers the existence of small-scale traditional crops that are more time consuming to grow and less lucrative to sell, according to Girmey López Martínez, an agricultural engineer and promoter of traditional agriculture. Each year, the fair unites a diverse group of farmers who continue to grow traditional Oaxacan crops even in the face of the rising tide of big ag, sharing their products with the public in order to help maintain culinary familiarity with them, as well as saving seeds to exchange them with other farmers they meet at the fair in an additional effort to maintain agricultural diversity in the region.

“The aim of the fair is to strengthen and maintain the biodiversity of the region’s gardens, milpas, coffee plantations and cacao plantations,” said Martínez in an interview a few days after the most recent edition of the fair, which he helped fundraise. In addition to an increasing dependence on monocropping in Oaxaca, Martínez cited factors such as the growth of the local ranching industry and the explosion of unsustainable ecotourism practices as additional pressures that endanger agricultural diversity in the region. 

The display of husband-and-wife producers José Gregorio Justo and Reina Ramirez Ronquillo from the rainforested Chinantla region, which includes yucca root, fresh banana leaves, and chayote gourd. (Photo: Lauren Rothman)

For husband-and-wife producers José Gregorio Justo and Reina Ramirez Ronquillo from the rainforested Chinantla region of Oaxaca, continuing to grow the corn sown by their ancestors is of utmost importance. “We can’t lose the traditions we’ve had since the olden times,” Ronquillo said at the fair as she stood behind the couple’s abundant display of organically grown sugarcane, bananas, squashes, green beans, coffee, beans and several types of corn. “Where we live, lots of people are growing genetically modified corn. But we know that what we grow is better than that type of corn. And we’re taking care of the soil, too.”

Accompanied at her display by her daughter-in-law, Ronquillo added that farming in the old way takes future generations into consideration, too. “We don’t buy anything at the store,” she said. “Everything we eat, we grow. Lots of mothers and fathers today are buying their children sodas and chips, and it’s pure poison. Our grandchildren eat boiled chayotes, bananas, yucca; we make a fresh infused water to drink and it’s much healthier.”

Nearby, Maria de Jesús Fuentes attended to her display of panela, or raw sugar-sweetened tostadas made from native corn and flavored with additional ingredients such as cacao and grated coconut. Fuentes had traveled from the Mandimbo community close to the Oaxacan coast and, in addition to her prepared products, had in tow a variety of young fruit trees ranging from jackfruit to starfruit to mango. She explains that part of her work is saving the seeds from different types of fruit, both to trade with other farmers as well as to grow into trees that she sells. 

“There are two major threats to criolla [native] seeds today,” said Fuentes. “One is the threat of all the GMO crops everyone is sowing. And the other is that the young people just don’t want to keep farming. Under both of these threats, species can go extinct. And that is why we save seeds.”

Women producers of Tlahuitoltepec, in the Sierra Mixe region, display corn (of course), plus prickly chayote and freshly fermented pulque drink, made from the tapped sap of the agave plant. (Photo: Lauren Rothman)

While many of the vendors adhere to organic practices, others continue to sow native crops but take advantage of the convenience offered by agrochemicals, such as one farmer from the mountainous La Cañada region who admitted to mixing commercial fertilizer in with goat manure. 

Overall, Martínez noted, the majority of the expositors left this year’s fair feeling delighted with the event and the opportunity to exchange products, seeds and ideas with other growers as well as with the Oaxacan public. “This is our second year participating, and we really enjoy being here,” said Ronquillo from the Chinantla region. “It makes us happy to be able to offer the products that we grow.”

The post In Oaxaca, a State Fair That Celebrates Native Crops’ Rich Legacy appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“What we’re going to be doing today is pruning,” Sanchez tells the group. “We’ll start with the banana trees, and once we’ve thinned out that line, we’ll move on to the taller eucalyptus.” She explains that this is one of the most important tasks in agroforestry, because the hormones that the pruned branches release into the soil below will nourish plant beds and help the plants grow stronger and faster.

This location in Tlacochahuaya is called Tierra del Sol, a regenerative farming initiative and eco village founded in 1998 by Pablo Ruiz Lavalle, the site’s director. Formerly a commercial airline pilot, in that year Lavalle purchased one hectare—about two and a half acres—of land. Surrounded by plots characterized by intensive monocropping of crops such as corn, beans and alfalfa, the small area he purchased had been left unworked for some time and was in a sorry state. “The soil here was extremely compacted, there was very little organic material in it and it was stripped of any cover crops,” Lavalle says as we sit in an open-air gazebo on the property, accompanied by late-morning birdsong and the steady drone of forager honeybees flocking to Tierra del Sol’s scores of lavender plants. 

Pablo Ruiz Lavalle. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

Glancing at the site’s neighboring parcels, where small-scale farmers work plots of the aforementioned crops using heavy applications of industrial pesticides and herbicides provided for free by the Mexican government, Lavalle’s description of the area’s not-too-distant past wasn’t hard to imagine. But looking over at Tierra del Sol’s garden plot, tall trees in various intensities of green swaying slowly above crops such as lettuce, broccoli, and a wide variety of herbs, it was more difficult to picture this land’s less-than-productive beginnings.

A key difference between Tierra del Sol and the dry, cracked farmland surrounding it? The practice of syntropic agriculture.

A view of Tierra del Sol’s plot of land. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

The 4,500-square-meter plot where Sanchez would welcome volunteers to the tequio has been cultivated using principles of syntropic agriculture since 2019. This method of agroforestry, developed by the Swiss farmer and plant geneticist Ernst Götsch starting in the late 1970s, aims to work with nature, not against it, by reproducing certain principles of a naturally occurring forest in order to both cultivate food and rehabilitate the soil. 

In syntropic agriculture spaces, plants are grown in different strata, beginning with low-to-the-ground vegetables, legumes, fruits, and herbs and culminating in a tree canopy that is populated by different species depending on the growing climate. Throughout the year, those trees are periodically pruned, with the consistent bring-down of organic material to the gardens below working to restore soil fertility, increase the diversity of microbes and fungi and ensure the health of the crops growing on the garden floor. Regular pruning of trees also manages the sun and shade conditions, further contributing to a balanced ecosystem. In the presence of a well-managed syntropic agriculture system, soil grows healthier, regenerating in one-third the time it would if left unassisted. 

Born in 1948, Götsch relocated to Brazil in the early 1980s, eventually establishing himself and his family on 480 hectares of clear-cut Bahian forest that had been completely razed by the previous owner to produce lumber. There, with the initial intention of seeding a cacao plantation, Götsch set to work rehabilitating the land with his nascent principles of syntropic agriculture. In 1995, he published an early report on his farming methods, “Break-Through in Agriculture,” earning him local attention and acclaim. Today, Götsch’s verdant, ecologically diverse oasis in Brazil—a country known for its rampant deforestation practices—continues to attract the interest of advocates of regenerative agriculture. 

Volunteers pitch in during a work day at Tierra del Sol. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

As the name “syntropic” implies, Götsch’s farming principles aim to produce more life, not less. As opposed to the entropic, chemical-heavy methods of monocropping that today dominate the global industrial farming landscape, syntropic systems increase matter and energy over time, building biodiversity and enriching soil fertility. And while the term syntropic agriculture is a fairly recent one, the practices it utilizes are anything but modern.

“It’s very important to recognize that when we talk about agroforestry, when we talk about syntropic agriculture, we’re talking about Indigenous agriculture,” says Namastê Messerschmidt, a longtime student and collaborator of Ernst Götsch who currently resides in Curitiba, in southern Brazil. In 2019, Sanchez, the consultant at Tierra del Sol, took a weeklong agroforestry course with Messerschmidt, and she came away so impressed with the techniques he imparted that she immediately convinced Lavalle, the center’s director, to pivot from the permaculture approach of hugelkultur—raised beds made of rotting logs and other plant debris—to syntropic agriculture. Tierra del Sol’s syntropic garden plot was seeded that same year.

According to Messerschmidt, cultures all over the world have always worked with the forest, planting their crops below the tree canopy and utilizing its abundant natural resources to boost their food production. As an example, he cites a phenomenon known in Brazil as “Indian black earth” or “Indigenous black earth”: a dark, humid soil found throughout the Amazon that’s highly fertile and rich in minerals such as calcium, magnesium and zinc. Once thought to be a natural phenomenon, this black earth is today recognized as the product of some eight thousand years of sustainable, Indigenous Brazilian agriculture, in which native Amazonian tribes domesticated crops such as yucca under a forest canopy of native trees such as cacao and mahogany. 

“For me, agroforestry is doing things as nature does them,” says Messerschmidt. “There’s an intelligence in the forest that we’re simply allowing to unfold.”

Lining paths with pruned material during a work day at Tierra del Sol. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

At workshops, courses, and training all over the world as well as online, instructors including Messerschmidt, Götsch and others are spreading the gospel of syntropy—and people are listening. 

“The demand is growing, and the need for it is even higher,” says Thiago Barbosa, the Australia-based founder of Syntropic Solutions, a designer and developer of agroforestry projects that helps individuals, companies and corporations transition from conventional to syntropic agriculture. Barbosa travels all over the world to teach workshops on agroforestry. He notes that the global interest in the practices is at an all-time high.

“At these workshops, I see more and more people from all walks of life,” he says. “Single moms that just want to have self-sufficiency, farmers who don’t want to spray with chemicals anymore, big corporations that are looking to meet their carbon targets.” In that last category is the cosmetics giant L’Oréal, at whose offices in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Syntropic Solutions planted an edible orchard of native fruit trees.

Using machetes during a work day at Tierra del Sol. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

At Tierra del Sol, there’s evidence—observed both scientifically and anecdotally—that the center’s transition to syntropic agriculture has been a success. Sanchez tells me that, in 2021 and 2022, the garden’s team performed analyses of the soil using chromatography, which demonstrates soil health through markers such as mineral content and the presence of microorganisms. The second samples taken at Tierra del Sol showed increased oxygenation and a higher content of organic material than the year prior, says Sanchez. But the changes at Tierra del Sol can simply be observed with the naked eye—and ear.

“It’s very clear,” says Lavalle. “One of the things you notice, when you’re walking from the neighboring parcels to ours, is that the closer you get, the more birdsong you hear in the morning and the afternoon. There’s a lot more insect activity, too.”

“The fields that surround us—well, you can see how those look,” says Lavalle. “Whereas here, there are bees, there are wasps, there are all kinds of signs to show us that this area is home to more life than it was before.”

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The car clicker-sized machine relies on spectroscopy, the same kind of light-based technology that astronomers use to determine the composition of stars.

SCiO hasn’t hit the market yet, but the stunning success of the Kickstarter campaign run by Consumer Physics, the company that developed the device, is one indication that the finished product will be in high demand. Within 20 hours of the campaign’s May launch, it $200,000 goal was fully funded; the company quickly announced a new $2 million goal that was met well in advance of its mid-June deadline.

Dror Sharon, CEO and co-founder of Consumer Physics, attributes the campaign’s popularity to the web site’s community feel: On the page, more than 11,000 backers – many of them scientists or techies or both – debate SCiO’s uses and limitations on a comment thread that numbers over 800 entries.

“Kickstarter backers are excited because they know that they will have a real role in bringing this technology to life,” Sharon said. “Without them, the database will not grow and the technology won’t succeed.”

Picking out a juicy plum the old-fashioned way seems simple in comparison to understanding just how SCiO works. The car clicker-sized machine relies on spectroscopy, the same kind of light-based technology that astronomers use to determine the composition of stars. When performing a scan, SCiO’s tiny optical sensor captures the item’s molecular footprint, then measures how those molecules interact with light, creating a barcode-like readout that SCiO’s in-house app converts into the data it sends to your phone.

Because SCiO measures molecules and molecules make up all physical objects, the device has the potential to assess much more than just fruit ripeness. Dror foresees the tool becoming indispensable to farmers and home gardeners, who will be able to use it to assess soil quality and plant health.

“SCiO will measure the plant’s water and macronutrient content,” he said. “This information will optimize growing by helping farmers use accurate amounts of water and fertilizers. Farmers will conserve resources and maximize plant yield, and they’ll also reduce their impact on the environment.”

The device will also help farmers figure out the ideal time for harvesting crops, Dror said, by assessing a fruit or vegetable’s firmness, acid composition and level of sweetness.

Consumer Physics will use SCiO’s Kickstarter campaign funds to ramp up production, and expects to begin distribution early next year. The device will cost $299, and users will likely have to pay a fee to sign up for one of the many apps that developers are creating to be used in conjunction with SCiO: over 600 developers have backed the campaign, Dror said.

It’s hard to imagine needing a machine to complete the familiar errand of going to the store and buying a bag of apples. But though a device like SCiO might seem foreign now, Dror insists that such sensors are the way of the future.

“Long term, when these sensors are ubiquitous, some of our daily habits and routines will change due to the instant information available to us, just as small, low-cost phones equipped with GPS, cameras, and microphones have already changed our lives.”

The post This Pocket-Sized Sensor Will Tell You When Fruit Is Ripe appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Getting rid of feathers would help.

Schmidt’s team, in collaboration with researchers from Iowa State University and North Carolina State University, traveled to both Uganda and Brazil to study birds with featherless necks and heads, an adaptation that allows the south-of-the-equator poultry to throw off additional body heat and stay cool in their scorching native climes. By decoding the bald chickens’ DNA, Schmidt and his colleagues hope to someday have the information needed to crossbreed the bareheaded birds with U.S. poultry, creating a chicken that’s better able to adapt to the warmer American climate of the near future.

By decoding the bald chickens’ DNA, Schmidt and his colleagues hope to someday have the information needed to crossbreed the bareheaded birds with U.S. poultry, creating a chicken that’s better able to adapt to the warmer American climate of the near future.

“We’re going to be seeing heat waves that are both hotter and longer,” Schmidt said. “And we need to learn how to mitigate the effect of climate change on animals – we need to figure out how to help them adapt to it.”

As the planet warms, farmers that raise both meat chickens and egg layers will soon have to deal with the crippling effects of heat stress, and might find the traditional North American breeds – birds like Jersey Giants and Rhode Island Reds – newly susceptible to complications such as higher mortality rates, lower appetite and an increased risk of disease. And with demand for chicken on the rise – in 2015, the Food and Agriculture Organization projects, global production of poultry will top 100 million tons per year and by 2030 will rise to 143 million tons – sick birds are simply not an option on a planet that’s already having trouble raising enough food for its population.

Schmidt samples the DNA of a chicken in Uganda.

“My concern is feeding nine billion people in 2050,” Schmidt said. “That’s going to be a challenge. And it’s going to be made worse if the climate does continue to change.”

In addition to sporting insta-cool featherless heads, the African and South American birds Schmidt is working with are an overall hardy lot whose resistance to other environmental stressors besides heat could also benefit American chickens.

“These are backyard flocks that are exposed to the elements – in Africa, you literally see chickens crossing the street,” Schmidt said. “These birds are under constant selection pressure. What we’re doing is isolating the genetic variants that have allowed them to survive.”

Schmidt’s team’s work is part of a five-year, $4.7 million climate change grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Three years into the project, the geneticists have gathered just about all the data they’ll need and will spend the next two years analyzing it: mapping the birds’ gene sequences in order to determine the best approach for getting those good, heat-resistant genes into American chickens without taking along all the genetic “baggage,” as Schmidt calls it, that’s unnecessary to duplicate in the hybrid chickens. And although the tools Schmidt’s team utilizes are modern, high-tech and very expensive, the mechanism for creating the heat-resistant birds will be a simple and age-old one: selective breeding.

“I want to make clear that we are not dealing with anything genetically modified here,” Schmidt said. “This is an approach that humans have taken for over 10,000 years.”

“I want to make clear that we are not dealing with anything genetically modified here. This is an approach that humans have taken for over 10,000 years.’

Any breeding of heat-resistant chickens that will take place in the future will be beyond the scope of the University of Delaware’s project, which is responsible only for the gene sequencing and data crunching. But in Schmidt’s projections, naked-necked birds would be bred with American production birds in successive generations, introducing heat-resistant adaptations gradually until, at about ten generations in, the new breed would be “done” and ready to reproduce all on its own. But the process is delicate – and won’t happen overnight.

“Doing this is going to take time,” Schmidt explained. “It could take two decades of research before resulting in any actual chickens.”

Not that the poultry industry – despite strong evidence that climate change is already underway – is in any rush to change things up.

“You talk to farmers today and they’re not concerned,” Schmidt said. “These people are thinking one flock, one generation at a time. But that’s the reason this kind of work needs to take place in an academic environment. Is it important for next year? Probably not. But is it important a decade or so down the line? Absolutely.”

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