Community Agroecology Network

𝗦𝗘𝗫𝗧𝗢 𝗗𝗜𝗔 𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗖𝗔𝗠𝗕𝗜𝗢

🔥 Esta inolvidable experiencia del intercambio terminó del mismo modo que inició el primer día, celebrando alrededor del fuego y la chakana. Esta vez agradecimos por las nuevas amistades, vivencias compartidas, aprendizajes colectivos e inspiraciones de compañeros y compañeras que se organizan para permanecer en sus territorios construyendo agroecologías y defendiendo sus modos de vida comunitarios.

🍃Con una ceremonia Maya de la 𝙋𝙚𝙣í𝙣𝙨𝙪𝙡𝙖 𝙙𝙚 𝙔𝙪𝙘𝙖𝙩á𝙣, construimos un altar colectivo, para agradecer a los vientos de este, oeste, norte y sur, que representan los espíritus que cuidan los bosques y nos protejen. Con el corazón del cielo y el corazón de la tierra reafirmamos nuestra presencia y cerramos la ceremonia 🫀.

De esta manera dimos paso a la lectura del pronunciamiento final del intercambio, donde plasmamos con una palabra colectiva nuestros sentires, denuncias y compromisos. Finalmente expresamos un mensaje de solidaridad con los compañeros del parque de la papa presos en Cusco por defender su territorio ✊🏽.

Salimos de la 𝙋𝙡𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙔𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙮 𝙆𝙪𝙮𝙘𝙝𝙞 con los mejores recuerdos del equipo anfitrión, desde la oficina hasta la cocina. Nuestra última visita para rememorar la civilización de Incas y Runas fue en el 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙟𝙤 𝘼𝙧𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙤𝙡ó𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙤 𝙙𝙚 𝙏𝙖𝙢𝙗𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙮 y en el 𝙏𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙤 𝘾𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙖𝙘𝙨𝙖𝙮𝙝𝙪𝙖𝙢á𝙣. Con la fuerza ancestral y milenaria de los andes cerramos el día, intercambiamos abrazos y nos despedimos, sabiendo que regresariamos a nuestros luegares siendo parte de una nueva 𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙙𝙚 𝙖𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙨, 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙨 𝙮 𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙯𝙖𝙨 💫🤝🏽🌎.

Community Agroecology Network Asociación ANDES ciias CII-ASDENICUCA San Ramon VIDA, A.C. The Acequia Institute Tierras Milperas Agroecology Fund

·

𝗤𝗨𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗢 𝗗𝗜𝗔 𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗖𝗔𝗠𝗕𝗜𝗢
Recibimos el solsticio de verano en el norte y el solsticio de invierno en el sur. Juntos y juntas recordamos el sentir de la música, alimentos y las palabras colectivas que plasmamos sobre nuestras camisetas en el taller de 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙛í𝙖 como herramienta de comunicación popular🪧.

El estampado continuó de manera simultanea con la muy anticipada actividad:
La C𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙣𝙖 C𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙙𝙖, na metodología que venimos practicando en cada intercambio de la RIAC, que nos permite acercanos de una manera amistosa y espontánea para compartir la preparación de la comida. A través del acto supremo de cocinar cuestionamos los roles de género, hablamos de semillas, historias, saberes, recetas tradicionales, luchas, celebraciones y ejercitamos una verdadera práctica plural e intercultural 🎉.

La noche la recibimos con una variedad de sabores insuperable y con una maravillosa presentación de 𝙢ú𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙖 𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙖. El canto y el baile, junto con el sonido de las flautas, las quenas y los tambores, se combinaron con el fuego, para activar nuestros sentidos y nuestros cuerpos con estos ritmos cargados de la latidos milenaria de las montañas andinas 🥁.

Community Agroecology Network Asociación ANDES CII-ASDENIC UCA San Ramon VIDA, A.C. The Acequia Institute Tierras Milperas Agroecology Fund



FIFTH DAY OF THE INTERCAMBIO
We receive the summer solstice in the north and the winter solstice in the south. Together we remember the feeling of music, food and the collective words that we put on our t-shirts in the 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙛í𝙖 workshop as a popular communication tool🪧.

The printing continued simultaneously with the highly anticipated activity:
The C𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙣𝙖 C𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙙𝙖. A methodology that we have been practicing in each RIAC exchange, which allows us to approach each other in a friendly and spontaneous way to share the preparation of food. Through the supreme act of cooking we question gender roles, we talk about seeds, stories, knowledge, traditional recipes, struggles, celebrations and we exercise a true plural and intercultural practice 🎉.

We welcomed the night with an amazing variety of flavors and a wonderful presentation of 𝙢ú𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙖 𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙖. The singing and dancing, along with the sound of flutes, quenas and drums, were combined with fire, to activate our senses and our bodies with these rhythms loaded with the ancient heartbeat of the Andean mountains 🥁.

RIAC-Joven Red Internacional de Agroecologia Comunitaria-Joven Community Agroecology Network Asociación ANDES CII-ASDENIC UCA San Ramon VIDA, A.C. The Acequia Institute Tierras Milperas Agroecology Fund

𝗖𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗢 𝗗𝗜𝗔 𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗖𝗔𝗠𝗕𝗜𝗢
💬 Fue un día de reflexiones colectivas tanto en grupos por bio-regiones como en grupos diversos. Profundizamos sobre los conflictos territoriales que afectan a nuestras comunidades y que vulneran especialmente nuestras trayectorias como jóvenes. Identificamos varias tensiones comunes con Megaproyectos como la minería, monocultivos transgénicos, forestación o turismo, y que generan grandes impactos en nuestras aguas, bosques, formas de organización e identidades culturales.

⚠️ En algunas regiones hay conflictos muy graves que pone en riesgo nuestras vidas, como sucede con los fenómenos de la migración y el narcotráfico. En otros lugares avanzan los intereses corporativos que quieren apropiarse de nuestras tierras comunales y privatizar nuestras aguas, todo a través de los discursos del progreso.

✊🏽 Frente a estas amenazas levantamos nuestras voces como juventudes campesinas, urbanas, migrantes, afrodescendientes e indígenas, de las aguas, las selvas, los bosques y las montañas, para reclamar nuestros derechos y para incidir en las decisiones sobre los lugares que habitamos. También buscamos mayor participación en nuestras propias organizaciones, que las generaciones mayores cedan espacios y permitan renovar liderazgos, para construir procesos intergeneracionales de cuidado de la vida y defensa de nuestros territorios.
Tenemos muchos desafíos, pero reconocemos que nos acompañan fuerzas y voluntades para construir una realidad justa, libre, equitativa, sin violencia, menos jerárquica, con memoria e identidad. Para llegar a ese mundo que queremos y debemos caminar de manera organizada y no permitir que nos arrebaten la esperanza 💫.

Community Agroecology Network Asociación ANDES CII-ASDENIC UCA San Ramon VIDA, A.C. The Acequia Institute Tierras Milperas Agroecology Fund

·

DAY FOUR OF THE YOUTH INTERCAMBIO
💬 It was a day of collective reflections both in groups by bio-regions and in diverse groups. We delve into the territorial conflicts that affect our communities and that especially violate our trajectories as young people. We identify several common tensions with Megaprojects such as mining, transgenic monocultures, forestry or tourism, and that generate great impacts on our waters, forests, forms of organization and cultural identities.

⚠️ In some regions there are very serious conflicts that put our lives at risk, as happens with the phenomena of migration and drug trafficking. In other places, corporate interests are advancing that want to appropriate our communal lands and privatize our waters, all through the discourses of progress.

✊🏽 In the face of these threats we raise our voices as rural, urban, migrant, Afro-descendant and indigenous youth, from the waters, the jungles, the forests and the mountains, to claim our rights and to influence the decisions about the places we live. We also seek greater participation in our own organizations, for older generations to give up space and allow leadership to be renewed, to build intergenerational processes of care for life and defense of our territories.
We have many challenges, but we recognize that we have strength and will to build a just, free, equitable reality, without violence, less hierarchical, with memory and identity. To reach that world that we want and we must walk in an organized way and not allow hope to be taken away from us 💫.

𝗦𝗘𝗚𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗢 𝗗𝗜𝗔 𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗖𝗔𝗠𝗕𝗜𝗢.
🌄 Las altas montañas del distrito de Lares, a más de 3000 m s.n.m., fueron el escenario donde jóvenes de la región nos compartieron sobre sus hermosos paisajes, mientras nos dirigíamos hacia la 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙌𝙪𝙚𝙘𝙝𝙪𝙖 𝘾𝙘𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣. En un sector del mercado profundizamos nuestro conocimiento sobre los principios y formas de hacer economías comunitarias y solidarias. Allí, jóvenes participaron directamente en la práctica viva del trueque, una economía sin mediación de capital, donde el trabajo y las relaciones comunitarias están en el centro, fortaleciendo espacios de intercambio intracomunitario e intrazonal. Esta es una economía milenaria que se sigue practicando y que sostiene la soberanía alimentaria del pueblo 🤝🏽.

Escuchamos a autoridades campesinas comentando sobre sus formas tradicionales de trueque, intercambiamos experiencias de economías solidarias en otros contextos y sus principios con juventudes trabajando con café AgroEco, nos presentaron su música y disfrutamos de comidas tradicionales a base de las papas nativas 🔥.

Continuando el movimiento, visitamos el 𝘾𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤 𝘼𝙧𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙤𝙡𝙤́𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙤 𝘼𝙣𝙠𝙖𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙠𝙖 y conocimos sobre la investigación que se hacía desde épocas preIncaicas y sus tecnologías como la 𝙦𝙤𝙡𝙘𝙖 en conservación de alimentos y adaptación de semillas 🌱.

En la tarde regresamos a nuestra base en la 𝙋𝙡𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙔𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙮 𝙆𝙪𝙮𝙘𝙝𝙞 para socializar las principales conclusiones de los grupos de trabajo del día anterior, de manera reflexiva y creativa, con cuentos y sociodramas. La jornada se alargó hasta la noche y el día terminó con algo de cansancio pero con gran satisfacción por la diversidad de aprendizajes 😁.

Community Agroecology Network Asociación ANDES CII-ASDENIC UCA San Ramon VIDA, A.C. The Acequia Institute Tierras Milperas Agroecology Fund

𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗥 𝗗𝗜𝗔 𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗖𝗔𝗠𝗕𝗜𝗢.
Desde el sur al norte, el río y el mar, la selva y la montaña, viajamos a tierras andinas para escucharnos, intercambiar aprendizajes y reafirmar compromisos 🌄.

🔥 Después de una bella ceremonia de bienvenida y con el permiso de los 𝘼𝙥𝙪𝙨, dimos inicio a nuestra agenda de trabajo. Presentándonos y compartiendo, con diferentes acentos y lenguas, reconocimos el grandioso legado de diversidad biocultural en nuestros territorios, pero también las amenazas y las luchas que enfrentamos día a día, para permanecer de manera digna en nuestras comunidades 🤝🏽.

🐝 El intercambio de saberes y experiencias se profundizó a través de los cuatro ejes de debate que organizaron las juventudes: tecnologías, cambio climático, agroecologías y defensa de los territorios. Los diálogos iniciaron, se fueron mezclando con curiosidades sobre nuestros lugares de origen y nos acompañaron hasta el momento de cuidado del cuerpo.

Con la ayuda de las aguas termales milenarias, tuvimos un momento espontáneo de disfrute para cerrar el día y recargarnos de energía para la semana intensa de trabajo que empezaba. 💫.��Revisa un resumen del intercambio en el enlace de nuestra biografía.

Asociación ANDES CII-ASDENIC UCA San Ramon VIDA, A.C. The Acequia Institute Tierras Milperas Agroecology Fund

http://canunite.org/es/juventudes-multiplicando-saberes-de-la-tierra-y-redes-de-vida-riac-2024/. Juventudes Multiplicando Saberes de la Tierra y Redes de Vida para la Defensa de Comunidades Sur a Norte.

🥳 Celebramos nuestro 11 intercambio internacional de la RIAC, esta vez en el Valle Sagrado de los Incas, Perú tierras ancestrales de Incas y Runas y el centro de origen de la Papa. Juventudes articuladas y organizadas para defender comunidades y construir otras agroecolgías hacia la soberanía alimentaria.

👀 Cada semana les compartiremos algunas imágenes para acercarles vivencias y aprendizajes de este encuentro que, junto con Apus y ancestros, nos convoca a seguir sintiendo, pensando y trabajando con la tierra 🌄.

Asociación ANDES UCA San Ramon CII-ASDENIC VIDA, A.C. The Acequia Institute Tierras Milperas

Agradecimientos al apoyo generoso de aliados de CAN: Swift Foundation, Panta Rhea Foundation, Agroecology Fund, Kellogg Foundation, McKnight Foundation y a los donantes de CAN.

http://canunite.org/youth-multiplying-land-knowledges-and-networks-of-life-riacs-11th-annual-intercambio/

Juventudes Multiplicando Saberes de la Tierra y Redes de Vida RIAC 2024                   RIAC en el Valle Sagrado de los Inca, Perú  Hace apenas un mes la Red Internacional de Agroecología Comunitaria-Joven (RIAC-Joven) llegó a una de las regiones más altas y coloridas del mundo, el Valle Sagrado de los Incas en Perú.

Youth Multiplying Land Knowledges and Networks of Life

This recipe book documents the knowledge and practice of an intergenerational learning community focused on the recovery of Latinx culinary and traditional farming history. The recipe book gathers the knowledge shared during garden cultivation, workshops, interviews, community dialogues and culturallysignificant celebrations. It is a community resource to promote nutritious cultural foodways, especially the production and consumption of culturally-relevant vegetables, including nutrient-rich greens. 24 recipes show how to transform garden produce into healthy dishes that bring comfort to daily life, soothing the body and the heart.
“This is our recipe book to return to the cultivation of land, to the community, and feed ourselves well together here in Watsonville and Pajaro, CA the original territory of the Amah Mutsun peoples”. GJ Youth.

Find the link to the recipe book in the bio.

“Building common spaces to weave our community is what has allowed us to make the garden, a space where you return to the natural world. It helps us stay connected as young people because many of us come here very young or were born here in cities. We see that we can also learn from other people, everyone brings knowledge from other places and we put it together, experiment, and practice”. GJ Youth.
📸 3-4. Since 2019, Growing Justice’s youth have gathered every Wednesday in the Riverpark garden. There, they share food and have workshops on soils, water, seed care, and the agro-food system. They also make art and listen to the stories and memories that older people share with them. In these spaces, their planting is collective, with everyone taking care of several vegetables together each week. They harvest medicinal plants, fruits, and vegetables, which they use to create new recipes or recover those that are falling behind due to the current pace of life. The youngest learn from the elders and the mothers who join them. Together, the youth from Growing Justice and the people from Tierras Milperas built a mudbrick kitchen and a bonfire space where they could cook together relax, eat, and tell stories. 📸 5. This community garden is also a space to celebrate the richness and diversity of the foods that nourish our bodies and hearts, such as the quelites gathering organized by .milperas, as well as traditions such as Día de los Mu***os, honoring the lives of those who have come before us. Find the link to the recipe book in the bio.

Intergenerational community🌾🌿🏵️
📸 2. “...And now what are we going to eat?” (¿Y ahora qué vamos a comer?) Is a collective publication between the Community Agroecology Network (CAN) and .milperas, the result of the collaboration process that we have been building for the last 3 years with different youth in the Riverpark garden, with their mothers, fathers, and grandparents, with our community of farmers, campesinos and agricultural workers, and with the people of the neighborhood of Riverpark on Front St.
In 2020, when the network of gardens became independent and the families organized themselves as Tierras Milperas, we continued the space called Growing Justice (GJ), participating together in assemblies and community activities to reweave our efforts towards returning to the land and bringing youth closer to the milpa. Together we see that it is possible to change the agro-food system and the way we relate as a community and with the land.
📸 3-4. “We are young people, mothers, daughters and sons, members of the community in general, community facilitators, land enthusiasts. We are from the south, the north, the south in the north; we are from where we tend the land in community. We carry our questions like our seeds, and as young people, we ask to know more where we come from. We practice and talk about the history of the land, migration and community foodways, how to plant, how to cook, everything from the milpa. In the milpa we find beans, pumpkin, maize, words to dialogue with our grandparents, the marigold flowers and the living memory of the ones who preceded us, the atole, the corundas, the tortilla chips, the salsa, and all the rainbow of the diversity of the quelites, xakua, and yiwa, and more”. GJ Youth.

Find the link to the recipe book in the bio.

Thank you for joining us in supporting youth-led initiatives that make agrarian lands and community life bloom. Your contributions make our work possible✨🌿🌻🥦🌽🥕

There’s still time to donate!
Join CAN and the youth who are making agrarian lands bloom. Your donation contributes to the future of youth-led initiatives 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/40LW0XK

📸Lisandra is part of the Sanadores Maya (Maya Healers) Collective through her participation in CAJAC (Solidarity Economies Community of Learning & Practice). The collective makes tinctures from medicinal plants that they sell and trade at local markets. Lisandra is revitalizing her community’s traditional knowledge, and staying firmly rooted in her homeland. Support youth like Lisandra today!

If you are unable to donate you can also help us by sharing on your social networks and spreading the word ✊🏾🗣📢

What happens when youth lead in connecting a solidarity economy based on participation and transparency? AgroEco Coffee! ☕️ A solidarity supply network for agroecological coffee created by CAN and our partners, active since 2004.

AgroEco is family farmers that produce coffee, organized into two cooperatives–the UCA San Ramon in Nicaragua and Campesinos en la Lucha Agraria/VIDA AC in Mexico. It is also youth in Mexico and Nicaragua intimately connected to each stage of coffee production from planting seedlings to harvesting quality shade-grown coffee beans. Joined by youth in California, together they are transforming beans into cups of coffee, managing work spaces and administering collective business models at three points of sale: the Cafeteria Montegrande in San Ramón, Nicaragua, the FemCafé coffee shop in Veracruz, Mexico, and the Youth Collective Coffee Stand at the Cabrillo College Farmer’s Market in California. To reach this point, youth have traveled a path full of administrative and organizational learning.

Youth are applying creativity and innovation to sell coffee with a focus on caring for land and community. Will you support youth on their path of building out solidarity economies from South to North?

Help us reach our fundraising campaign goal. Your donation is part of a commitment to local initiatives that uphold the atom and sustainability of rural communities and youth-lead initiatives.

If you are unable to donate you can also help us by sharing on your social networks and spread the word🔉✨

Growing Justice, located in Watsonville, California, is a youth-led initiative where young people grow food with their migrant elders from Michoacán, Oaxaca and Jalisco, Mexico. Alongside their parents and grandparents, they tend El Jardín del Río, or River Garden, creating a community space of resistance, memory and hope. The garden comes to life among the corn plants, under the shelter of the pumpkins and in the intertwined embrace of the beans: this is the milpa in its maximum splendor. Stories shared between generations resound, evoking the migratory journey from south to north, memories of lands, now far away, and the legacy of millenary agricultural practices. Elders share their knowledge with the next generation, knowledge from other lands, where they learned to take care of the water, to protect the forest and to love the animals. Every seed sown in the garden is a form of collective resistance to capitalist individualism and the extractive model of industrial agriculture.

Join CAN and the youth who are making agrarian lands bloom. Your donation contributes to youth-led initiatives such as Growing Justice that are leading the way in redefining our relationship to food and the community bonds woven around it. 

CAN accompanies Growing Justice youth, co-facilitating garden activities and documenting their collective learnings, so together we can act on them. We do this in synergy with our partner, .milperas, a campesino organization of farmworker families that collectively steward community gardens in Watsonville. Together we published “¿Y ahora, qué vamos a comer? (What are we going to Eat Now?)”, a collection of recipes and reflections from 4 years of cultivating, cooking, building garden infrastructure, and celebrating with youth and their families, the campesino community and the people of Riverpark neighborhood in Watsonville.

Learn more about Growing Justice and our collective recipe book in our bio!

Donate today!

Donate today!
We are halfway through our campaign and every step counts. It is time to support youth on their path to make community life and agrarian lands bloom.
📸CAJAC’s and Growing Justice youth and moms
📸 youth also members Lear more about our campaign checking the link in bio!

We continue our fundraising campaign sharing our collaborations with youth in the Maya homelands of southern Mexico. Now it’s the turn of the Community of Learning and Practice Youth, and Commercialization (CAJAC).
During 3 years, CAJAC gathered for knowledge exchanges, skill-building workshops and visits to family farms and solidarity markets. Six youth collectives formed, creating 8 products that support agroecological production practices, such as chicken eggs, medicinal plant tinctures, honey-based shampoo and more.
We also want to share Jóvenes de la Zona Maya initiative which selects and packages native seeds that they share, trade, and sell. These seeds, passed down from generation to generation for millennia, are the basis of community life.

Support CAN so we can continue to create spaces for collective learning, like CAJAC, that respect the decisions and desires of young people, providing them with tools to weave strong community networks focused on achieving the collective good.
Learn more about our campaign, the CAJAC community and Jóvenes de la Zona Maya initiative here 👇🏿https://canunite.org/youth_blooming_campaign_cajac/
“

We are glad to announce our annual donation campaign!

Youth Blooming Agrarian Lands and Community Life🌱

At CAN we believe that if anyone has the strength and momentum to guide the future of agroecology, it is rural and urban youth, organized with their communities, and connected through ties of solidarity, together defending life in dignity.

Join us in raising $100,000 by December 31!
Your contribution will support CAN's collaborative work to strengthen youth initiatives imagining and building a healthy and just food system.

Learn more about our work with youth in our web site.
https://canunite.org/youth_blooming_campaign/
Go to this link to donate https://bit.ly/40LW0XK

With great enthusiasm, we would like to invite you to an event that signifies the culmination of a journey filled with valuable lessons. Over the past three years, we have been accompanying and sharing experiences and reflections on agroecology and the potential paths to construct a solidarity-based economy alongside the youth of the Learning and Practice Community for Youth, Agroecology, and Commercialization (CAJAC) in the southern region of Mexico (Yucatan Peninsula and Chiapas).

These youth are undeniably an integral part of shaping a more sustainable future. With their energy, creativity, dreams, and unwavering determination, they are reviving and preserving the ancestral wisdom of their cultures related to agriculture, nutrition, and their connection with Mother Earth. From small rural gardens to projects involving the production and transformation of agroecological products, these youths are also leading the way towards a fair, healthy, and equitable food system.

Their passion and dedication remind us that every seed we plant today is a promise of a future where a good life is attainable for all. Agroecological projects challenge the individualistic capitalist logic and inspire us to believe in the possibilities of a dignified life through collective efforts.

CAN and the CAJAC facilitation team invite you to join us on Saturday, October 14th in Yucatán. If you are not in the area, you can assist us by sharing this information on your social media. Spread the word, and let's support these young individuals in their valuable work. We eagerly await your participation with open arms!

What is the taste of and in your cup of coffee?
☕With this question CAN seeks to open a dialogue about the production and consumption of AgroEco’s coffee with students, teachers, and enthusiastic coffee drinkers along California’s Central Coast.
A cup of AgroEco ☕ begins in the coffee forests 🌳🌱🌼 of San Ramón, Nicaragua, and Ixhuatlán del Café, Veracruz, Mexico, where campesino families are organized into small cooperatives. They cultivate coffee alongside bananas, oranges, medicinal plants, and timber trees while nurturing microorganisms to regenerate soil fertility 🍌🍊🌿🌳. These practices create microclimates that bring forth specific notes of butter, citrus, chocolate, nuts, or cherries that can be enjoyed in every sip 🧈🍋🍫🌰🍒.
CAN recently facilitated coffee tastings in seminars at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and in collaboration with the at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Each tasting brings consumers closer to the work of coffee-growing families, where each cup of coffee becomes a bridge between cultures and values, allowing for dialogue about solidarity coffee. An alternative path is traced, one that embraces the local wisdom of small farmers and moves away from the simple monetary exchange of beans.
Learn more about AgroEco’s coffee in our most recent 👉🏾 https://canunite.org/agroeco-tastings/

In the last few days, the youth from different communities of the Yucatan Peninsula and Chiapas, who make up the Community of Learning and Practice of Agroecology, Youth, and Commercialization, met in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, for their 5th Intercambio, accompanied by their liaisons and a team of facilitators integrated by and . This meeting space was designed for the youth to share the progress of the productive projects they are developing in their communities.

The exchange among the youth is strengthened through training activities, which in this case focused on activities related to the marketing of agroecological products and the relationship with potential buyers so that the youth can reflect on the values of their projects and the importance of sharing them with others. This training culminated in a sales practice at the Healthy and Local Food Market of San Cristóbal, where the young people also shared with this community of producers and processors of agroecological products.

This Intercambio also included a session organized and facilitated by the youth of Chiapas for the youth of the Yucatan Peninsula about identity and culture, in which they shared their customs and reflections on how the use of traditional costumes has changed and the importance of recovering and preserving the original foods of their communities as a way of recognizing the ancestral knowledge and flavors of their cultural history.

The Intercambio ended with a session in which agreements were made for the next steps of their projects, including a promise to meet again in September to continue the production of participatory videos in which the youth will present their projects.

Stay tuned for youth activities on our social media.