The members of the community Alto Columbe, Chimborazo province, are living with these concepts in mind, determination and conviction about the fact that Ecuador’s Constitution must be enforced sooner or later in the rural areas.

Mercedes Guacho and her husband, Mariano Pascar, are members of this community. They received Real World Radio into their home, 3000 meter high above sea level, in intensively productive areas, and they showed us with pride their division fences for cattle, their agroforestry projects, their terrace system, their traditional crops -some of them almost extinct in Alto Columbe.

Mariano said that this is the way his ancestors worked, but due to the technology packages brought by the green revolution, the area became less and less rich in terms of crops, and more dependent on expensive inputs, turning providers into “partners” of the hard work of the peasants.

They don’t have access to electricity, but what this community urgently needs is an irrigation system that allows them to expand the sowing and harvesting seasons.

The traditional four months of rains have been reduced to two, and the rains have become more violent and heavier, making the traditional practices to mitigate the erosion of soils inefficient.

“In the cities, supermarkets have a large influence and ‘junk’ and ‘fast’ food are imposed on people”, said Mariano.

“Peasants offer the best food for human beings, but people need to realize this, and there are some bad influences in the country” that do not defend peasant family production, said the Ecuadorian peasant.

Mariano and Mercedes’ farm is part of the Agroecological Farm Committee that has been working for several years rescuing ancestral knowledge and updating peasant practices towards agroecology as an alternative, but also as a political message of resistance against the depeasantization of the rural areas, the advance of monoculture plantations to produce agrofuels (African palm, sugarcane) and also human desertization due to mining or forestry projects.

Meanwhile, Mercedes Guacho highlighted the importance of sharing the example of a change in the production system in her community to have more families joining this growing movement.

She said that there are many families that show interest when they see the changes in her farm, such as the incorporation of medicinal plants to help their children, and they no longer want to be working for intermediaries. They want to improve their own quality of life and that of the community.

Photo: Real World Radio