After weeks of steady rain, the forest is lush with green growth and the air thick with humidity. It is late morning, the clouds and mist long burned away from the tropical sun, yet beneath the trees it remains cool. I follow my companions down a muddy path that fades quickly into vines and thick duff: oak leaves and moss, rotting wood; mushrooms. 

Leading us is Alfredo Cortez, Maya-Achi farmer and community leader, who slices his way through the vegetation with his machete. Arriving to a rocky outcrop, he lowers himself to the forest floor and gathers a handful of dark organic material. 

“This is what we’re looking for,” he says. “What we need to bring back with us.”

He holds it where I can see, pointing out the white streaks of mycelium, the level of moisture and decomposition, the smell. 

“Lleno de microorganismos,” he says, dropping it into his bag. 

Full of microorganisms. Countless soil dwellers; bacteria, fungus, yeasts, microscopic predators; all reproducing and dying, eating and defecating, drawing down carbon from the atmosphere and forming complex bonds to the world above. 

It takes us an hour to fill our sacks, ten kilos each. There are three of us: Cortez and Feliciano Acuj, also an Indigenous farmer and leader, and me: a foreign academic and long-time pupil; aprendiendo haciendo. Learning by doing. 

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An agroforestry system at Pajaro Verde in Guatemala that produces coffee, fruit and other native crops. Photo provided courtesy of Nathan Einbinder.

Our plan for today is to complete the first step in producing la Madre Líquida, or MMA (“Mother Liquid” or “Activated Mountain Microorganisms”); a fermented brew that serves as the base for their biological inputs. 

Known as bio-fertilizers, bio-inoculants, or simply bioinsumos, in Spanish, bio-inputs are microbial-based products used to replenish soils and boost agricultural production through beneficial microorganisms, often supplemented with minerals in the form of rock or bone dust and plants. While there is still much to be learned about how they function, bio-inputs are said – and in some cases experimentally demonstrated – to make nutrients more available to plants, as well as stimulate root growth, enhance resistance to disease, and improve seed germination. 

The idea, as summarized by author and researcher Juanfran López (2022), is to transfer the balance and richness of native and healthy forests to the fields, to help regulate, enrichen, and ultimately harmonize organic production to the point where synthetic inputs are no longer needed – or can be greatly reduced.

The main goal in the Maya-Achí territory¹, and elsewhere², is to replace synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which many campesinos have become dependent on since their introduction four decades ago. Bio-inputs are also expected to restore life to severely damaged soil – a result of overuse of agrochemicals and poor management practices. 

“With bioinsumos,” says Cortez, “we offer farmers an alternative. We don’t just say ‘stop using chemicals,’ and that’s it. We’re giving them an option.”

And a more affordable option it is. As the price for chemical fertilizer skyrockets³, becoming unattainable for poor family farmers and conventional growers alike⁴, microbial-based organic inputs, whether homemade, produced in a group, or bought locally, as explained, are offered at a fraction of the cost. 

But it’s not just about substituting one input for another. According to Acuj and Cortez, along with a growing number of Maya-Achí farmers I speak with, the new practices are hoped to facilitate wider transition towards agroecology: a return to the nature-based and more autonomous agriculture of their parents and grandparents, yet in different contexts altogether. These include unprecedented challenges around water scarcity due to climate change, agrochemical dependency and myriad other issues smallholders confront in defending their livelihoods⁵.

From the forest we walk back along a dirt road to Alfredo’s home and farm, called Pajaro Verde, or the Green Bird. What was only a decade ago a degraded and mostly abandoned plot of land, Pajaro Verde has achieved legendary status as an agroecological vitrina: a showcase for what’s possible in small-scale diversified agriculture, in an area increasingly prone to drought and excessive heat. Over the past few years, I’ve watched it become a regional centre for training, innovation, and recovery of ancestral practices. It is also the unofficial headquarters for their local development group, the Association of Committees for Community Production, or ACPC⁶.

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A blue bucket of "la Madre Sólida" which is fermented to promote the growth of micro-organisms and then added to soil to aid in crop growth and pest prevention. Photo provided courtesy of Nathan Einbinder.

Arriving first to his coffee plants – hundreds of bushes grown under leguminous trees, citrus and other fruits – we head to the biofabrica in the far corner of the parcel. One of three micro-processing plants in the territory, the Biofabrica Xesiguan – named after the village and river below – consists of a building and site where bio-inputs are produced, tested on crops, and added to other substrates, such as animal feed. 

With a literal translation of ‘bio-factory,’ biofabricas operate under the logic of enhancing community and individual farmer autonomy. It’s about neighbours working together, sharing and co-creating knowledge, and producing inputs at low budget. It’s also about revaluing labour – especially group work, an ancestral practice – in different ways than prescribed in the capitalist model. 

A growing body of research⁷ demonstrate how biofabricas are propelling the movement towards recovering sovereignty; a retaking of control over all aspects of farm production, after decades of loss. As stated by researcher Frederic Goulet and colleagues⁸, biofabricas offer a “decentralized model of production...the antithesis of that associated with chemical inputs,” which arrive from distant factories, and are created by experts who offer nothing but a recipe to follow, with high financial and environmental costs. 

The biofabrica in Xesiguan is like most I’ve seen: humble yet tidy, with one room, a tin roof and walls partially open to maintain airflow. Inside are a couple dozen 200 litre drums, many of them labelled with a date and name of product. 

“The first step for making the líquida,” says Alfredo, as we drop our sacks to the floor, “is to prepare the MM sólido.” 

He looks around for a specific drum and, upon locating it, calls me over and opens the lid. Inside is a substrate resembling a kind of multi-grain animal feed, reddish in colour and sweet smelling, not unlike silage. 

“With this – in thirty days’ time, long enough for it to ferment – we can make the líquida, by means of a tea.”

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A training event at Biofabrica Xesiguan. Photo provided courtesy of Nathan Einbinder.

By now we’re joined by Alfredo’s son, Suarlin, and another youth named William, both university students and agroecology “promotors” for ACPC. They bring in two more sacks of hojarasca – leaf litter – collected beneath a stand of bamboo: “to add greater diversity of beneficial microorganisms,”they tell me. 

We empty our bags onto a tarp on the floor, producing a large mound. At once everyone sits and begins separating and breaking up the material: tossing out larger sticks, crumpling up leaves and other particles, all the while making a closer inspection of mycelium and critters visible to the naked eye. 

The story of how this all came about – how the seeds for the bioinsumo project were sewn – begins nearly a decade ago, on a trip Cortez, Acuj, and other ACPC leaders took to neighbouring Chiapas, Mexico, to visit an organic coffee cooperative. It was there that they saw, for the first time, microbial inputs – just as they are here, in barrels under a tin roof in a remote Mayan village – and heard first-hand accounts about the benefits they provided. These included increased vigour and plant health that provided resistance to la Roya, a fungal disease (Leaf Rust, in English) that all but decimated coffee production across Mesoamerica⁹.

As an observer on the trip, I too was intrigued. The coffee plants appeared healthy and robust, and hardly any money was being spent on providing their nutritional demands. All that was required was knowledge and training, and a bit of investment on materials and labour. That, and an eager farming community to teach one another and spread the methods. 

I remember the lively discussions on our journey home. The new technology was interesting, we all agreed; a bit magical seeming: perhaps too good to be true. Was it realistic to believe that the same bio-inputs could be transferred to their region, given the different contexts and resources they had access to? A key question was support. In Mexico, it was more feasible to attain grants and assistance for this kind of work. But in Guatemala? Their experience with development agencies and particularly the government agricultural ministry, MAGA, was complicated at best, and often involved programmes that ignored their experience as food producers and stripped them of their autonomy¹⁰.

As an agroecologist, I was also sceptical of what seemed like a ‘magic-bullet’ solution to complex problems – with unknown consequences including new dependencies. Aside from that, did they even work? The science on bio-inputs was slim, and controversial (and still is, despite a growing body of evidence¹¹). Other critiques, by scientists and industry, include the inadequacy or “amateurism” of unprofessional farmers to produce high-quality biological inputs in unorthodox and possibly unsterile conditions¹². From an anthropological point of view, I wondered how bio-inputs might interact with traditional or ancestral practices, many of them proven to be efficient and ecological yet continually discredited by agricultural ‘experts’¹³.

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Alfredo Cortez, a Maya-Achi farmer and community leader, prepares a bio-input by boiling aromatic herbs at a biofabrica workshop. Photo provided courtesy of Nathan Einbinder.

Several years passed. ACPC continued strengthening their programmes around climate resilience through agroforestry and water capture; along with coffee production and routes to market for their small-scale producers. 

Meanwhile the topic of bio-inputs was growing regionally. At an invited workshop in nearby Chimaltenango, Cortez was introduced to the products once again, with a training on how they were made. Again, he heard testimony from Indigenous smallholders – along with charismatic teachers – about their efficacy in pest prevention and soil health. 

It wasn’t long after that ACPC leaders were approached by ANACAFE, the Guatemalan National Coffee Association, to discuss a new initiative in their region – an area known as the Mesoamerican Dry Corridor¹⁴. The focus would be on adaptation to severe climate disruptions, while continuing to improve the quality of coffee.

According to Cortez, ANACAFE, unlike so many institutions before them, understood the capacity of Maya-Achí farmers to manage their resources – their organic materials. 

“We [may have] adopted chemical fertilizers a long time ago,” he told me. “But we still knew how to manage our composts and manures. Our ancestral practices include fermenting plants and using resources like ash for managing PH and disinfecting the soil. These are techniques and knowledge that we’ve maintained...” 

After a consultation process that now included the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), they decided the project should centre on developing capacities around bio-inputs. Aside from ACPC there would be two other participating associations, located in different geographies of the territory. 

It was shortly after that a Cuban academic and educator named Ivan Lenin arrived to Xesiguan, to deliver the first of a series of capacitaciones, or trainings, to local farmers and leaders. 

I was never around to meet Don Lenin, as they called him, and observe his teaching. Though I heard much about his time conviviendo with the Maya-Achí community, and the admiration many had for him. 

“He taught us everything about bioinsumos,” recounts Cortez. “At the same time, he recognized our knowledge and experience and motivated us to innovate. He shared technologies and science that we would have never had access to.” 

The trainings took place over three years and coincided with the construction of the biofabricas and exchanges with other groups across Guatemala.

Cortez and other ACPC leaders jumped at any opportunity to learn more about the new technology and build a network. Soon enough, they were being called upon to deliver their own capacitaciones to other groups, from their centre at Pajaro Verde. 

***

The process takes longer than I thought; breaking up the materials and combining it with ground corn and several litres of molasses diluted in water. There’s no shortage of interruptions either: drop-ins by other farmers, long pauses where they show me other concoctions and manuals they’ve been given, and refacción: a snack of fresh tortillas and cheese, and a warm maize beverage called atol de lote.

“Puro orgánico,” says Acuj, refiling my cup. “Puro microorganismo!”

We conclude by loading the final product, now mildly adhesive and fragrant, into a drum and sealing it airtight. Over the following weeks it will ferment and ‘activate,’ then be used to create the madre líquida. 

We move outside into the sun, which is strong but bearable. In the distance, thunderheads rise quickly into the sky. After more than half a year of drought and record-breaking heat, the rains have been a godsend, bringing life to the forest and fields, and recharging the watershed. 

But how the rainy season will progress is uncertain. Increasing irregularity over the past decade has wreaked havoc on crops. This year, the unseasonable heat and extended dry season caused widespread mortality amongst perennials, coffee included, and a complete halting of dry-season vegetable production. 

But it’s the changes in timing and duration of the canícula, or inter-wet season dry spell, that’s particularly disruptive. Typically lasting a couple of weeks, in recent years the canícula persisted up to two months, effectively drying out arable fields or milpas, the iconic Mesoamerican triad of corn, beans and squash: the mainstay of local diet and culture¹⁵. 

A key element of ACPC’s resilience work, along with improving soil health, is to try and shift production from milpa, which is more vulnerable to drought and typically grown on treeless slopes, to agroforestry – or an unorthodox combination of the two. 

“When I was a kid, everything you see was rastrojo,” or crop stubble, Cortez told me, when we first met. We were on a hillside near his farm looking out at the steep and reforested Xesiguan watershed, where his neighbours had once expanded their fields unsustainably to grow maize¹⁶. 

“Hurricane Mitch¹⁷ brought all the soil down to the river,” he said. “Without huge amounts of fertilizer, growing milpa was no longer possible. And just like now, we needed alternatives...” 

Specifically, they needed to plant trees and halt intensive annual cropping on steep, unsuitable terrain. 

Agroforestry had been on the radar of development agencies for decades, as a strategy to maintain agricultural productivity resistant to climate change while enhancing biodiversity¹⁸. It’s also a known ancestral practice, though traditionally consisted of small family plots with fruit and other harvestable trees and medicinal herbs. While important to food security, agroforestry was not typical in large-scale models for food production¹⁹ - or to substitute milpa. 

Yet, according to Cortez, given the situation following Mitch and climate change, families were more open to try new techniques and crops. Coffee, typically shade-grown, was one alternative, as well as intensifying tree crops like macadamia nuts. Small-scale intensive horticulture, which takes up less space and improved food security, was also popularized²⁰.

But like anything, working models were needed to encourage farmers to adopt and experiment on their own. And even then, many “agroecological” introductions over the years did not take root, for various reasons²¹.

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Alfredo Cortez surrounded by organically-grown tomatoes. Photo provided courtesy of Nathan Einbinder.

Pajaro Verde is a living example: a successful family farm, both economically²² and ecologically; mostly forested with coffee, native crops, horticulture; milpa during the wet season, and fully integrated with animals and ponds for aquaculture and water capture. 

The biofabrica is the latest addition, along with space around it for trialling and showcasing the results. 

“No one believes you can grow tomatoes organically – let alone outside a greenhouse,” Suarlin tells me, as we walk upslope to a plot alongside the road. 

Asking why that is, he explains that there’re “too many plagas” – insect and fungal diseases common during the wet season. 

“But here we have an example. With bioinsumos...” 

I can attest the plants look (and taste) great. We harvest a few tomatoes – Romas, typically grown as a cash crop – and eat them on the spot. 

Further down are pepper plants, also abundant and nearly ripe; and beyond that, beans, neatly cropped on small terraces, and dark green in colour.

“And what about other farmers,” I ask. “Are they seeing this?” 

This time it’s William who responds. 

“Everyone attending our workshops sees it; along with the cafetal” – he points to the coffee plants behind us, also receiving bio-input treatments. “People look in from the road as well – every day we receive visitors who want to know more...” 

In addition, there are the commercial farmers, or tomateros, they call them, from the neighbouring municipality of Salama, who’ve been purchasing bottles of madre líquida to experiment as a replacement for chemical fertilizers, which have become prohibitively expensive. 

However, the success of the trials here, as I’m soon to learn, are not as simple as one or two treatments, like you would a conventional fertilizer. Rather, it’s the outcome of a ‘package’ or suite of practices and inputs specific to each crop and stage of growth. It also implies that the soil is “ready to receive” the inputs – meaning it contains adequate organic matter, humidity, and so forth.

“It begins by constructing the cama nutritiva,” or ‘nutrient bed,’ explains Cortez, who’s joined us with his two young daughters, each carrying a basket to harvest vegetables.

This involves taking whatever compost is available and ‘activating’ it with microorganisms. It’s then buried into garden beds, given time to settle and cool, if needed, before planting into directly. 

“This provides all the nutrients and strength for the young plants,” says Cortez. “It also helps with germination and resistance to pests.”

This specific bed contains various mixtures: worm compost, bokashi, biochar – all relatively new introductions, and considered the most potent combination. 

He explains the qualities of each ingredient: the biochar holds moisture; the worm castings provide nutrients; and the bokashi, minerals. 

When asked how the bokashi works, he explains that it’s been “mineralized,” with a caldo or soup of crushed rock providing specific micro- and macro-nutrients. 

This is where bio-inputs cross into the realm of “bio-fertilizers,” typically applied to boost yield²³. The products require non-local ingredients²⁴, which carry both financial and environmental burdens – something that conflicts with the goal of self-sufficiency and falls firmly into the logic of productivism. 

Cortez claims their bio-fertilizers are “superior to chemicals,” as the microorganisms assist in making nutrients available to crops. They also help “restore damaged soils, rather than pollute them.” But the end goal is to find other sources of minerals, like fermented plants such as bananas, rather than imported rock dusts²⁵, which in this instance were provided by the programme²⁶.

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A collection of microorganisms for bio-input production sits beneath a stand of bamboo. Photo provided courtesy of Nathan Einbinder.

Continuing our tour, they alternate explaining the different inputs they’ve used and experimented with, depending on what they believe is lacking in the soil²⁷.

“There’s been some trial and error,” says William, mentioning how some crops haven’t responded well to the addition of certain combinations, or too much application which causes a “burning” effect. There can also be an excess of nitrogen, as happens with urea, the common fertilizer, or unprocessed animal manures. 

For pest prevention, they’re convinced that applying copious amounts of beneficial microorganisms has reduced disease and pest damage. 

Yet when pests do arrive – or when consulting farmers who’re experiencing outbreaks – they use M5, a bio-input consisting of a dozen or so “aromatic” plants, like garlic, basil, and native herbs, fermented and applied with or without microorganisms. 

“This is an ancestral practice, innovated,” says Cortez – something I’ve heard multiple times about the techniques. 

“We’ve always used plants as repellents. But now we’re ‘potentializing’ the resource...”

According to Cortez and others, learning about bio-inputs has allowed a deeper understanding of their traditional practices; a more scientific understanding that allows them to find ways to use them more efficiently.

In another example, he explains how “[The] abuelos always collected litter from the forest and spread it onto their fields. They were doing the same thing we are but didn’t understand how it worked. Now we do. And by innovating the resource” – by multiplying the microorganisms through fermentation – “we require a much smaller amount than they did, with greater impact.”

The latter point speaks directly to the present context: less forest and more drought, smaller-size family plots, larger populations. All are factors in driving a perceived necessity of chemical fertilizers²⁸ and incompatibility of ancestral practices, given their reliance on organic matter, knowledge of how to make use of it, and manual labour (which is time-consuming and expensive).

It’s easy to understand their enthusiasm for the new technology: not only does it carry the potential to outcompete agrochemicals, but it also encourages a “revaluing,” as Cortez puts it, of the area’s natural riches and its capacity to enhance agricultural production – a key foundation to ACPC’s work.

Their arguments are compelling – and the evidence in the crops, despite the fact that that the processes are more involved than one might think, is here to be seen.

Yet the effects of their efforts to extend their knowledge and passion about bio-inputs to the greater public remain to be seen. How willing will farmers be to drop or greatly reduce the habit of buying chemical inputs, as they’ve done for decades, for something mysterious and not yet fully proven, with the potential of more labour needed and access to resources? If this scaling and popularisation is successful, how will the technology shape and be shaped by new contexts? Will it be as effective for new practitioners as for current proponents?

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Alfredo Cortez and ACPC member in her organic milpa. Photo courtesy of Nathan Einbinder.

For weeks I’ve been speaking with farmers, to get a sense of how they might adopt, and why. Are they motivated by productivity only, as the case with fertilizers? Or is there something deeper at play; something that taps into an ancestral longing to reconnect with nature, as intimated by Cortez and his associates? In addition, I’m curious what the experience might tell us about the broader panorama of Indigenous agriculture: its relationship (and often clash) with modernity, and more “natural” ways of producing food. 

Through Cortez and Acuj, I’m introduced to a range of ACPC members²⁹; women and men, young and old, each with different needs, limitations, and strengths. 

I meet smallholders like Doña Rosa, from the hamlet of Tablón, whose interest in bio-inputs, she tells me, is out of a “desire to recover the past. When we didn’t use chemicals...” 

Active in ACPC for years, Doña Rosa attended bioinsumo workshops and leads a group of seventeen women who meet once a week to make MM sólido, for chicken feed³⁰, and líquida, for their crops, in bulk. 

“This is one method of extension,” Cortez explains. “Doña Rosa has been trained up and is now teaching others and facilitating the group.”

What he hopes for next is another biofabrica here – “in strategic points all over the basin” – something entirely contingent on receiving more project support. 

Drinking fresh atol, Doña Rosa shows us her barrels, nearly empty after distributing the products amongst her group. They need more materials, she claims – more receptacles for fermenting, and molasses – which in the beginning were gifted by the programme yet are now their own responsibility. 

“There’s a lot of demand,” she says. “But there’s only so much we can achieve without pisto,” or money, colloquially put. 

After viewing her kitchen garden and agroforestry plot – which is small but diverse, located on a steep former cornfield – we walk along a path to where she and other members of her group plant their milpa. 

In the muggy afternoon heat, we come upon Doña Margarita, a woman of about sixty dressed in a colourful traditional huipil cleaning her plot with a hoe. Seeing us, she smiles and immediately begins speaking to Cortez and Acuj in Achí.

“She’s not using any fertilizers this year,” Acuj tells me, “Just microorganismos.” 

The crops, still young, appear healthy – particularly the squash, which covers the ground in thick green leaves. I notice other herbs as well: wild amaranth or bledo, and macuy³¹, a nutritious plant in the tomato family and indicator of healthy soil and, in many cases, composts. 

I ask whether she’s applied chicken manure and receive a nod. 

“And native seeds?” 

“Of course...”

Acuj explains that it’s a trial; usually they use small amounts of chemical fertilizer at specific times. But this year she’ll only use bioinsumos. 

Cortez walks downslope and inspects a sprayer lying against a tree: a plastic backpack with a hand pump, ubiquitous amongst milpa farmers and often gifted by institutions. He picks it up and begins spraying the plants. “MM,” he says, very pleased. 

When I ask Doña Margarita why she’s switched to bio-inputs rather than continue her usual routine she claims it’s the cost. 

“No pisto,” she says. “But thank God Don Alfredo taught us. The plants look the same as with chemicals. But we’ll see, at harvest time...” 

The conversation then turns to Don Francisco, another farmer from La Cumbre, high in the watershed, whose milpa has become a source of debate following a recent viewing by ACPC members. 

“They don’t believe its organic,” says Acuj, holding up his cell phone so I can see the photo: a sea of maize two metres high, with beans climbing up the stalks and mature pines interspersed. 

Cortez explains that there’s still a lot of scepticism about what bio-inputs can do. “We need more evidence,” he says. “More examples like Francisco...” 

For now, their focus is on ramping up production of MMA, along with mineralised bio-fertilizers, to distribute amongst members for trialling this year.

This is another methodology, says Cortez, borrowed from the Green Revolution. “We must ask ourselves: what made it so successful? what worked to get people hooked? We want to offer samples and build more campos of experimentation, like they did. This way, we can outcompete them...” 

Yet it’s clear that gifting only will not be enough. In our next visit with coffee farmer Doña Mercedes, we come across jars of bio-inputs sitting unused on a shelf, which she claims were donated by another group without instructions. We’re also given a brief tour to another biofabrica, which appears mostly abandoned. 

“The technologies were imposed here – not asked for,” Acuj explains. Apparently, biofabricas are sitting empty across the country, where programmes have lacked adequate consultation and teaching methods. The situation brings to mind the countless past introductions and programmes which have failed in the territory for similar reasons, along with critique about bio-inputs (ours included³²) as an unnecessary technology in a region awash with undervalued traditional practices and knowledge. 

Cortez and ACPC promoters stress the importance of accompaniment and bespoke packages that respond to each producer’s needs and capacities. As well as constant reflection on technology and its role in their work. 

“Technology’s great,” I recall Cortez expounding to a group of farmers not long ago. “But one must always question its objective. Is it to benefit producers and the environment? Or to create more consumers and for industry?”

In a similar opinion, Yolanda, a young ACPC leader we visit, affirms that technology is needed in today’s context of interlinking crises. However, it’s the farmers that must be in control of what they adopt and how it’s used. 

“Take for example greenhouses,” she says. “This is a technology that’s helped us women a great deal – and is compatible with our ancestral practices. It’s helped us continue growing our native crops and seeds under different sets of challenges.”

Like other research I’ve done in the territory, analysing drivers of and barriers to agroecology³³, a unifying factor among most farmers I speak with is their perception of crisis and the desire for new ideas to help recover their viability as producers – and the soil.

Yet there are always outliers, who often become equally important in understanding the context and pushing the dial. 

Don Francisco is a case in point. We visit his home late one afternoon, following a heavy downpour. Situated twenty minutes walking from the nearest road, he and his family manage an entire hillside; very steep in places, mostly forested, and north facing.

Greeted by his wife, Esmeralda, who offers us fresco – cold watery juice made with passionfruit – we’re met by Francisco and his son, Mauricio, who come sprinting up the mountain. 

Nearly sixty, Don Francisco is youthful in appearance and energy, and passionate about what he’s achieved. “One hundred percent organic!” he exclaims, taking us through his milpa while stopping intermittently to demonstrate the thick leaves and stalks; the rich, dark soil, and often, the different birds flying overhead. 

Absent from his commentary is any mention of crisis, or rising costs. For him, bio-inputs have little to do with fixing a problem, rather they are complementary to his overall farming system; his love of nature and zest for working the land. It’s allowed him and his family to push their already utilized resource base – including many animals, both wild and domesticated, forest and water – to new levels. 

“He’s always been a successful farmer,” remarks Cortez. “He’s an innovator, with his composting, and honey production (from wild bees). He works day and night protecting his soil and diversifying. But he also works with chemicals, when needed³⁴. With bio-inputs, he can become more self-sufficient. And deepen his connection with Mother Earth.” 

Our tour, which includes several hand-dug ponds, terminates at the recently completed biofabrica, a small construction assisted by ACPC to empower his efforts and establish another site for community learning. 

Akin to Francisco in his dedication to the land and spirit to connect with and live from it is another ACPC member called Rony Chen, who, together with his wife, Sara, have managed to reforest a once barren slope that in today’s climate would appear only suitable for cacti and dried shrubs.

Located at the bottom of the valley in an area increasingly subject to wildfire (which burned a sizable corner of his farm not long ago) and water shortages, Chen’s family farm is a labour of love; a site for experimentation, for toiling and spiritual regeneration, as well as making a practical living – without the need to migrate.

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Don Francisco stands in his milpa. Photo provided by Nathan Einbinder.

“We’ve planted three thousand trees so far,” he says, walking through his property like we have many times before, pausing at sites where advances have been made: new terraces and crops, ponds, compost pits. When asked why he does it – why they sacrifice so much for such a harsh and unforgiving land – he shrugs. “I love nature,” he says, not without emotion. “And we must restore it, to survive.” 

But the restoration he speaks of isn’t limited to ecology. Chen, who is 47, laments the erosion of ancestral values, for example communal work and self-sufficiency, which many in the community have exchanged for fast-technology, consumerism, and the “American Dream.” 

Critical of development, he blames government and NGO programmes for “breaking our way of producing without chemicals.” This includes the promotion of hybrid seeds³⁵ and pesticides – so-called “paquetes tecnologicos” – which continue “to be gifted in the name of climate adaptation.” 

Echoing Cortez, Chen claims that they’ve lost the “art of being a campesino,” which includes constant experimentation, ingeniousness, and love.

Yet, despite his scepticism of anything imported and so-called modern, he’s not opposed to bio-inputs. Rather, the opposite. 

“We’ve lost our equilibrium,” he says, a common sentiment among many farmers I speak with. “Certain technologies will benefit our ability to recover principles: growing our own chemical-free food, seeds, identity, language; connecting and restoring nature... Bio-inputs are a channel of transition.” 

When asked how the new products and practices might achieve this, he states that “Bio-inputs enhance our autonomy: a threat to the government and corporations. But the trick is innovating nature – this is territorial defence – having control over all our primary resources.” 

Regarding wider-scale adoption he returns to his cynicism: “Ancestral has lost its credibility. ‘Fábrica’ (which translates directly to ‘factory’) is a way to adapt to the times, for better or worse: to attract people sold to the industrial model. It’s a first step: backwards and forwards.”

“And you?” I ask. “Do you use the products?”

He smiles reticently, as he often does when I ask a question, though quickly turns serious.

“I’m planning on it. I’m going to the trainings. Though I don’t want to buy anything. I’ll make my own.” 

***

It’s late in the day, nearly dark, when we return to Pajaro Verde. Sitting over a final coffee, we reflect on past days. Our visits have proven that there is undeniable interest in the technologies and prospects for multiple benefits. Yet still, many questions remain.

What will the future hold, with institutional support set to end this year, leaving ACPC without funds to expand the programme? And how will the season end up – both in terms of the canícula or other potential weather disturbances, and for the farmers expecting immediate results in their milpas? 

And an even larger question, one I hope to get at in years to come: Can bio-inputs, even in the best of outcomes, genuinely improve the viability of Indigenous farmers and their autonomy; reversing the negative trends of migration, reliance on industrial foods, desertification, etcetera? 

Big questions – though not necessarily ones we avoid, even this late in the day. Eternally optimistic, Cortez knows that whatever happens with the programme, this year or next, their struggle will continue, and they will succeed.

“It’s all about working with what we have: that’s agroecology,” he says, time and again. “Knowing and making best use of what’s at hand. Ancestral is knowing we’re part of nature. That we can do anything from supposedly nothing. We fight for this; recovering our values and principles, and we will win.”