In the Rancho Viejo community, in the municipality of San Andrés Tlalnelhuayocan, environmental organizations, academic institutions, cooperatives, groups and peasant families promote cornfields without pesticides.
In this area bordering the city of Xalapa, cultural and artistic activities are held to promote healthy crops free of toxins that harm the land, crops and health.
The most recent meeting was held on September 29, to commemorate National Corn Day, through the Tenth Cornfield Fair.
Environmentalists and residents of the region participated in this event that was organized by civil associations and institutions such as Territorios Diversos para la Vida, A.C., Sendas A.C., INAH Veracruz, the Center for Tropical Research of the Universidad Veracruzana and the Cooperativa De la Montaña.
These are collective activities to care for the land with traditional and agroecological forms of planting.
The Vicente Guerrero A.C. Integral Rural Development Project is one of the peasant organizations that has been working for more than 35 years with the objective of achieving food security and who organized the first Milpa Fair in 1977, in Tlaxcala.
On that occasion, there were 63 local corn producers who put up for sale products based on this food of Mesoamerican origin that has meant the identity and food foundations of the country.
Simultaneous workshops have also been held on seeds, body and territory; as well as medicinal plants and experiences of agroecological management in the milpa, which highlight the importance of knowing the territories and their ecosystems.
The Milpa Fairs aim to make visible the varieties of corn, the ways of cultivating and the gastronomic diversity of the central area of Veracruz, as well as to promote the exchange of knowledge and seeds between people who grow and prepare food from the milpa.
“The milpa, the corn, is culture and tradition, an ancestral food that reminds us of the biocultural wealth found in our territory. The national corn day helps us to commemorate the historical importance that this grain has had for thousands of years and that it has been part of the economy, identity, culture and food that makes us who we are,” the organizations indicate.
Source: horacero
