Xicote Market
Xicote: Mercado Ecológico, Our Project
The Xicote: Mercado Ecológico is a cultural project whose purpose is to show the community of Xico that the solutions to problems of health and poverty lie in its own hands. Our intention is to promote the production in Xico of organic products and to bring consumers the opportunity to support their community and at the same time contribute to their own good health: they will be able to invest their money in a sustainable development project and to supply a part of food they eat each week at the same time.
The Mercado is sponsored by the Escuela de Ciencias Ecológicas, ECO A.C., an NGO founded in November, 2004 for the purpose of working for the conservation of natural resources in the region of Cofre de Perote. Conservation requires the implementation of sustainable production systems. As well as saving natural resources, sustainable practices provide a decent income for those who follow them.
The project promotes the production of organic food crops on a local scale for the local market. A cultural project, the Xicote is a local response to the problem of globalization.
Open from 11 to 3 every Sunday at Hidalgo #214
Producers’ Markets in Mexico
Although globalization of the production and distribution of our food permits us to get any product at any time of the year, it exacts a very high cost for small producers, the environment, and rural communities. Each year during the past century, the producer received less for his products than he had the year before. In 1910, the producer received around 40% of the price of the product to the consumer, but in 2000, he received less than 10%.
Around the world, communities and producers have begun to organize in order to find alternatives to globalization. Farmers’ markets are a very visible example of how producers can recover the money taken from them by transnational food businesses (agribusinesses). Farmers’ markets are also the best way to support local producers. In 1970 In the United States there were 300 local markets, today there are 3100. In England the first one opened in 1997 and today there are more than 300.
In Mexico the Mexican Network of farmers’ and Ecological Markets is an independent NGO, made up of producers, academics, and consumers, both rural and urban who seek to promote organic agriculture, fair trade and responsible consumption. So far, organic markets have also been established in Jalisco, Oaxaca, other parts of Veracruz, Tlaxcala, Mexico State, Michoacán, Baja California Sur and Puebla. To find out more, go to: www.chapingo.com.mx/ciestaam/to or email tianguisorganico@yahoo.com.mx.
Certification
To obtain certification, each organization has to follow and respect a few specific rules:
- To maintain biodiversity: by conserving the characteristics and natural equilibrium, protecting: river beds, water quality, carbon sinks, endemic flora and fauna.
- No synthetic chemicals: no pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, hormones or antibiotics.
- To treat animals humanely.
- To use organic fertilizers for crops.
- To avoid the use of sewage water.
- To seek ecological equilibrium and a socially just system of production. The producer should work in a healthy environment with a better system for the distribution of wealth.
Who we are
Arnulfo “El Chino” Gómez inherited his coffee farm in the folds of the small volcanic hill called Acamalín from his grandfather. Even during the years when IMNECAFE (links?) was most powerful, the land continued to be worked traditionally, without chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. The land today goes beyond organic. It is a sanctuary of biodiversity with more than thirteen types of shade tree. The earth is covered with a blanket of leaves and organic material some 30 centimeters deep. The coffee trees are fertilized with caterpillar compost made from the feces of the worms (butterfly larva) produced from eating the leaves of the shade trees. In addition, the coffee itself is processed with the use of almost no petroleum products since Chino carries the newly-cut coffee on his back to his house where he removes the pulp by hand. After fermenting, it is sundried and then husked by hand, toasted over a fire, ground in a mill by hand and offered to you at the Mercado Ecologico Xicote.
Lucia Colotl comes down from Matlalapa, the highest part of the county, bringing native corn tortillas, calla lilies, farm-fresh eggs and fruit in season. You have to try the tortillas. There is no comparison to tortillas prepared with commercial masa. The farm eggs come from chickens who live happily in their yards with their rooster and their companions, eat native maize free of agrochemicals and GMOs. The fruits and vegetables she brings vary from month to month according to the season and include among other things avocados and potatoes and pears and plums.