Cultivating hope

Peasants and smallholder farmers grow food for the majority of the world’s population, yet they face numerous challenges:from ecosystem destabilization caused by global heating to political and military conflicts disrupting their stewardship of the land.

In this year’s Escuelita, an ongoing collective learning program within Spore, we bring  together agroecological initiatives from a diversity of territories, from India, Kurdistan, Palestine, Sahara, Sicily, Yucatan, and Belém to exchange about agroecological practices and food sovereignty. The mutual exchange of knowledges and experiences focuses on practices like preserving heirloom seeds, improving the soil health, agroforestry, and solidarity-based economies.

We will also discuss management of water, zero cost forms of agriculture, foraging of wild plants, and ways of passing on knowledge across generations, as well as reclaiming the kitchen as a political space.

Together, we explore forms of care and regeneration for the web of life and how actors in different geographies and contexts, can learn from  and support each other in the face of profound changes such as climate catastrophe, land grabbing, neo-colonialism, migration, and the consequences of industrial agriculture and war. 

The following guests will be joining us for the meeting: Mohamed Sleiman Labat and Taleb Brahim, Aparajita Mathew and Shweta Azad, members of Nabat Eco Farm, Rami Massad and Aline Silva e Silva.

Please register by sending an e-mail to participate@spore-initiative.org. Please write a short paragraph telling us what your relationship to the Thama is and in what form you can pass on the knowledge you have acquired.