Without a farm it is worthless
More or less with these words the adversaries criticized Luís Gomero, post-graduate agronomist, teacher, researcher, influencer and, above all, transformer by conviction, when he questioned the indiscriminate use of pesticides: “remedies that kill”, as this character affirms. All this began more than 30 years ago, and it is not over yet. More than 20 years ago, Luis, born in Ancash in northern Peru, land of the mountain ranges Cordillera Negra and Cordillera Blanca, bought 4 hectares of land in the Chillon Valley, north of the metropolis of Lima, on the Lima – Canta highway. His chacra (from Quechua: chakra) , as Luis calls his farm, and named as HECOSAN, a word game between Helen and Sandy, his two daughters and ecology; in addition to a wide variety of vegetable crops, purple corn, breeding of small animals such as guinea pigs, it has technologies such as a biodigester, composting, vermiculture and much more to manage the farm. The farm serves several purposes: it produces healthy food that is sold at a point of sale in an urban market, receives visits from individuals and entire groups in order to bring visitors closer to the world of agroecological agriculture and livestock. At the same time, it is the place where research and experimentation, production and transformation take place. HECOSAN is in a way also home of the Alternative Agriculture Action Network (RAAA). This network was initially dedicated to the fight against pesticides and later expanded its focus to alternative agriculture. In the early years, the network operated as an NGO, but for more than ten years, its members, who are distributed in the regions of the country and a core team composed besides Luis of Francisco Quispe, Hector Velasquez, Roger Flores and recently, in the context of generational change, Judith Vargas, began to generate its own resources, providing education and training services, research and more recently with its own lines of development of productive enterprises.
On pesticides, good practices and neighbors
During my stay at the farm, I accompanied Luis on a visit to a neighbor. “On the way we can check that there are no toxic agro-chemical containers lying in the irrigation canal that carries the water during the weekly shift to HECOSAN. At a minimum, good practices require that empty containers of poisons be rinsed three times before being returned to the points of sale. But in Peru, these good practices are not mandatory as they are in neighboring Ecuador”. While Luis explains all this, he lifts up one of the empty containers thrown away: “Thanks to many campaigns we have managed to get the agricultural authorities to ban the import of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, whose use has been banned for years in the USA and the European Union because of its unacceptable risks to people and the environment. But there are other pesticides such as neurotoxic insecticides that contain neonicotinoids; these are pesticides designed to kill insects by attacking their nerve cells and, incidentally, affect the sense of orientation of pollinating insects such as bees”.
For many farmers in the Chillon Valley it is a problem to produce with less or even no pesticides, since their plots are directly adjacent to the plots of others, who apply the full conventional chemical cocktail. Grey Vargas, a neighbor of Luís explains: “When you produce in open fields, you can apply organic fertilizers and work on soil fertility, but you are not spared from the chemical spraying; this is taken care of by your neighbors”. Because of its proximity to Lima with its more than twelve million inhabitants, the Chillon Valley, which has fertile soils and water availability, is an area with very intensive production of a variety of vegetables. Of every ten producers, seven use a lot of agro-toxics, two and a half do not produce but rent their plots, with the result that the swallow producers – as they are called – who always rent for a single year, seek to maximize their profits with intensive applications of agro-toxics. So far there is only a small group of thirty to forty producers who produce or are moving towards agroecological and healthy production. Luis and Judith, who rents from Luis small piece of land on his farm, are part of the Association of Ecological Producers of the Chillon Valley – APEVCH. Hector and Roger, both members of the RAAA accompany and support this association. Together, Roger with Bertha Cruz, an official of the municipality of Carabayllo, visit producers in the Chillon Valley to awaken their interest in participating in the association. Bertha managed to get the municipality to assign the association a fixed place to organize its bio-fair every Saturday. Several of the association’s members, such as Yanina Loayza, a total agroecology believer, sell their agrochemical-free products at this fair. Héctor accompanies the approximately 15 producers of the association, who have applied for a certification process for organic production; Héctor explains: “People are used to growing very few crops; producing in diversity, as is usually done in alternative agriculture, is therefore a challenge”.
Senior influencer
Mind and chacra
HECOSAN is an integral farm, has many components and applies the principles of agroecology (crop and production diversification, recycling, resilience, food security, biodiversity, among others) and as the site of RAAA it offers services (courses, guided internships, consulting, research, positions for thesis students, pilot production and entrepreneurship). Plans are well underway to create an agro-ecology technology institute on the farm to meet the interest and demand of a public ranging from small producers to officials from ministries, universities, international cooperation agencies and the local agribusiness that exists in the Chillon River basin. The infrastructure for production trials and management of the production system already exists. Classrooms, restrooms and housing will be built very soon in order to inaugurate the institute. Luis and Héctor are both university professors and agree. “The trend and the demand for training are increasingly moving towards short courses with intervals between theory and practice, research and experimentation”. Thanks to arguments from the farm, the RAAA was able to introduce agroecological issues to the political agenda at the Peruvian Agricultural Convention (CONVEAGRO), the country’s most representative national agricultural forum, and on more than one occasion has pressured SENASA, Peru’s national agricultural health service, to promote good agricultural practices and to support family farming in its transition to clean production. The latest result of this kind of pressure: SENASA is now training small farmers in the Chillon Valley in biological pest control. Luis summarizes: “What we are doing in HECOSAN, in terms of practices, production, experimentation and research, construction of alternatives, often opens doors for us to socialize our contributions and arouse curiosity and generate debate. We achieve incidence with arguments, with profitability, with dialogue of knowledge, from economic inclusion, from good practices, from healthy production and direct sales and, above all, through the different channels of influence that are carried out”.
Threats and new bets
The authorities of Metropolitan Lima and Carabayllo, competent to regulate land use in a large part of the Chillon Valley, turn a blind eye. Francisco Quispe, another member of the RAAA: “Politicians do not take a stand and thus a clandestine but massive urban invasion is taking place, taking over more and more of the arable land in the area.” And Luís adds: “There is a need for land use planning with ecological and economic zoning criteria”.
There is no waste as long as there are good ideas, experiments and research… this is one of the mottos of the collective with Luis at the head.
Messages to the Future
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Authors:
- Jorge Krekeler | jorge.krekeler@posteo.de
Design:
- Gabriela Avendaño
- Ida Peñaranda
Photos:
- Luís Gomero
- Red de Acción en Agricultura Alternativa
- Jorge Krekeler
Contact information regarding the documented experience:
- Ing. Luís Gomero
- Facebook + Tiktok: luisgomero
- Instagram: luisgomero
- Twitter: luisgomero
- lgomero910@hotmail.com
- Red de Acción en Agricultura Alternativa – Raaa
- www.raaa.org.pe
- Facebook: Red de Acción en Agricultura Alternativa
- Instagram: Raaa
Edition:
october 2023
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