Fertile Ground: How Can We Change the World Starting Locally?

The Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda may seem too ambitious to be achieved at the community level. However, there are organizations that are making progress and bringing the SDGs to life in the communities where they work.

In an effort to share these projects and enrich the knowledge of those who are contributing to these global goals, as part of the project Building a Sustainable Future with Community Foundations in Mexico, Comunalia invited Proyecto Concentrarte, A.C., to our second “SDGs in Practice” session. Concentrarte presented its “Tierra Fértil” initiative, which, in collaboration with Amigos de San Cristóbal and Cadena A.C., works with the community of Miguel Hidalgo, Chiapas, to promote food sovereignty, a culture of peace, empathy, and the common good through agroecology and other participatory programs.

“The first form of sovereignty is organizing ourselves on our land to produce our own food”

Lourdes Vargas, institutional director, and María Fernanda Cano, head of fundraising at Concentrarte, shared with us how projects originate at the local level and how community members take ownership of their implementation. Concentrarte’s working model seeks to promote strategies for sustainability and resilience; when they arrive in a community, they conduct a participatory assessment, build community ties, and provide social support, and their programs are based on non-formal education through art and eco-pedagogy. Through active listening, they develop proposals that address people’s needs and contribute to the changes they aim to promote.

Tierra Fértil is a collective of 35 women that has been working since 2020 in a garden that uses regenerative agriculture and agroforestry systems to grow a variety of plant species. Furthermore, the work with the women in the garden and the formation of collectives in the Miguel Hidalgo community are closely aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals through two lines of action: education for health and sustainability, and food processing to make the most of the harvest and the community’s local resources.

In its first line of work, Concentrarte seeks to ensure that children in the community acquire theoretical and practical knowledge to promote sustainable development, linking food sovereignty, a culture of peace, and nonviolence (Target 4.7 of SDG 4 on Quality Education), while providing them with cultural and artistic opportunities in a community where they otherwise lack such access. Furthermore, they apply non-formal education models to foster a sense of community identity.

In its second line of work—by planting medicinal plants in the garden to support community-led health management and access to healthcare—Concentrarte promotes the exchange, recognition, and revaluation of local knowledge, replicating workshops, recipe collections, and collective herbariums for the community (Target 3.7 of SDG 3 on Good Health and Well-being). Through this, it seeks to reduce vulnerability to violence against women by offering workshops on natural gynecology and addressing women’s sexual and reproductive health.

Similarly, Tierra Fértil seeks to ensure that people in the Miguel Hidalgo community have access to healthy, nutritious, and sufficient food (Target 2.1 of SDG 2 on Zero Hunger) by promoting the use of resilient agricultural practices that improve soil and land quality (Target 2.4). In partnership with Isla Urbana, rainwater harvesting systems have been installed, while Concentrarte provides support for the adoption, care, and maintenance of these systems to ensure their sustainability. The adoption of these systems to address water scarcity not only promotes access to safe drinking water—both for irrigating the garden and for washing or cooking (Target 6.1 of SDG 6 on Water and Sanitation), but also, through a community agreement, ensures that women have full participation and leadership opportunities to decide on water use and the organization of its distribution (Target 5.5 of SDG 5 on Gender Equality).

At the same time, the garden strengthens the social and community fabric by involving women and children in its care, dividing tasks and the harvest equally, and increasing the community’s income. The fruits of this collective effort are shared, not only by consuming what is produced but also by selling vegetables. This has ushered in a new phase for the garden, where the community’s resources remain within the community, reducing dependence on external resources. Through this effort, they have succeeded in producing their own seeds, which can be reused, consumed, and added to their seed bank, allowing them to maintain seed diversity and promote traditional knowledge, as well as ensure fair and equitable distribution (Goal 2.5).

This project led to an unexpected change thanks to the results of the women’s work in caring for and maintaining the garden: they were granted a plot of land on a free-of-charge basis for the next 15 years to expand the garden and, with it, their work and livelihood. This development has brought about a profound change not only in the understanding of the place these women occupied in their community but also in the role of women and their right to land, thereby directly contributing to secure and equitable access to land (Target 2.3 of SDG 2) and to women’s ability to exercise their right to economic resources, as well as access to and control over land (Target 5.a of SDG 5).

Eventually, the garden area evolved from a plot with just three crops—corn, beans, and squash—into an agroforestry garden with 36 species, each of which plays a role in the agroecosystem. With a focus on long-term food and income sustainability, as well as water scarcity and soil erosion, this garden incorporates a regenerative agriculture approach that includes rainwater harvesting, green manure, vegetables, flowers, fruit trees, timber trees, and medicinal plants.

What’s next? Following the sale of the surplus harvest, the women from the garden want to form a cooperative and explore ways to generate more income to ensure the garden’s sustainability through the social and solidarity economy; they also hope to create a space where they can prepare herbal remedies.

Concentrarte A.C. aims to be a leader in collaborating with communities to build a dignified, self-reliant, and sustainable life. To this end, it promotes commitment, hard work, and an understanding of the local environment among community members, using the SDGs as a roadmap to amplify the impact of its actions by coordinating various efforts, projects, and partnerships.

Tierra Fértil website https://www.concentrarte.org/tierra-feacutertil.html
Concentrarte website https://www.concentrarte.org/

Photo by Concentrarte AC