Few weeks ago I was very fortunate to experience Mexico City’s incredible Xochimilco area and learn about the Chinampas. An inspiring initiative led by the @yolcan_mx entrepreneurs is reviving traditional farming practices established in Aztec times centred around Chinampas: these are small, rectangular areas of fertile land harnessed to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. This allows local farmers to grow, and then sell their unique, mixed produce to the best restaurants in Mexico city under a fair-trade model.
But this is about more than delicious seasonal product-based Mexican cuisine, Yolcan works on soil remediation and water cleaning, actions that facilitate the regeneration of the social fabric of communities and positively impacts the quality-of-life of farming families. The vision? To “understand that the process of preservation is not achieved by converting the current landscape into scenarios from the past, but reformulating the tradition and adapting it to the present. We have come together with the most important personalities of the Mexican gastronomic realm, personalities who already act as agents of change and who have helped us to enhance the congruence of the chinampas role as an agricultural area within the city.” A simply beautiful mix of sustainable agriculture, Aztec community tradition and Mexican gastronomy.
