This year's agroecology course takes place in the heart of the Maya culture area and provides a special opportunity to explore food system sustainability at the interface between local agricultural traditions and globalization. Farmers in Chiapas and the surrounding region of Mesoamerica are the stewards of five thousand years of agrobiodiversity and cultural knowledge of a complex range of environments, from temperate to wet and dry tropics. Even as local farmers explore new crops and techniques, their cultural memory contributes to biodiversity conservation by resisting the imposition of the external homogenization of prepackaged solutions. The combination of ancient agricultural traditions and evolving local knowledge with agroecology research is creating exciting frontiers for research, education, and practice. We will explore these frontiers with local farmers in their communities and fields, and exchange experiences from all over the region. Visits to school gardens in both rural and urban primary schools will allow us to see how communities transmit cultural memories to their children and incorporate traditions and agroecological knowledge into public education. The course should provide a unique view of the proposals of modern small farmers for the sustainable renewal of the rural environment. The instructors for the course will bring a wide range of experience from their work with farming communities of the region, providing insights to the rich Maya and other emerging local agricultural traditions and practice.

*The course will be conducted in Spanish*

A detailed course description can be found in English and Spanish. Information includes course costs and application procedures.

For further course information, contact agroecochiapas@gmail.com