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Executive Director Ph.D. Environmental Studies M.S. International Agricultural Development B.A. Evergreen State College, Washington
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Agroecology, Sustainable Agriculture, Campesino a Campesino Movement The Campesino a Campesino Movement has been spreading techniques for sustainable agriculture throughout Mesoamerica for the past thirty years. Supported by just a handful of non-governmental organizations, the Movement’s widespread transfer of smallholder technologies for conservation, restoration and sustainable production not only relies on simple agroecological principles, but also rests on strong cultural and socio-political identities among smallholders. The political and economic upheavals of the last two decades have led to glaring failures of state and international agricultural programs, both “conventional” and “sustainable.” Campesino a Campesino, however, has steadily capitalized on the region’s adverse conditions and the institutional void to develop a praxis “from below” which now challenges conventional non-governmental, state and regional institutions for the sustainable agriculture development agenda. This inquiry into the Campesino a Campesino Movement addresses the following questions: How and why has this structureless, “headless” movement grown, persisted and spread across borders? How do its adherents generate and re-situate agroecological knowledge? How is this knowledge used politically? What are the political stakes in the agenda for smallholder sustainable agriculture in Mesoamerica?
Publications: Crisis or Sustainability? Central America's Choices for Recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch Measuring Farmers' Agroecological Resistance to Hurricane Mitch in Central America
Research interests: agroforestry, agroecology, Farmer-to-Farmer Movement, Campesino a Campesino, farmer knowledge, sustainable agricultural development, sustainable agricultural recovery, sustainable agricultural restoration Contact Eric Holt-Gimenez by email: eholtgim@foodfirst.org
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