Agroecology in Mexico: Linking environmental and indigenous struggles

Abstract

There are few places where the hegemony of industrial agriculture is more complete than in contemporary Mexico. The forces arrayed against sustainable agriculture in such a context are formidable; yet this study chronicles an encouraging agroecology movement in indigenous regions of rural Mexico. Mexico's sustainable agriculture movement is emerging at a surprising nexus, in new linkages between indigenous resistance and modern environmentalism. These alliances center on a shared interest in the preservation and defense of traditional ecological knowledge. The resulting fusion of traditional and scientific knowledge undergirds creative experimentation in agroecology, discussed here as an essential component in a larger, although more difficult, quest for sustainable development.