Promote innovations for sustainable food production

Context

Mexico's rural population earns its living from agriculture. The wide range of vegetables, cereals, fruit and livestock breeds provides an excellent foundation for producing healthy food in a way that protects the environment.

However, many enterprises are small and earn very little money. They often make inefficient and incorrect use of mineral fertilisers and plant protection products which has a negative impact on their incomes and the environment. Using slash-and-burn practices to create new areas for agriculture has a detrimental effect on both nature and biodiversity.

The extreme weather caused by climate change also makes people’s life and work more difficult.

Objective

The Mexican agricultural and food systems are more ecologically sustainable, more socially just, and more adapted to the climate.

Approach

The project is working with the National Secretariat for Agriculture and Rural Development as well as the relevant Secretariats for Agriculture and the Environment in the states of Puebla and Oaxaca to support efforts in making Mexico’s agriculture more productive and more resilient.

The project has several different measures:

• The agricultural enterprises are supported in their use of innovative and environmentally-conscious production methods for maize, honey, agaves, cocoa and coffee, as well as for rearing sheep and goats. To achieve this, the project is boosting the expertise of agricultural technicians and producer groups.
• Digital information and learning platforms are being promoted which, amongst other things, show how to improve the production and marketing of produce.
• The aim of this project is for networks and information exchange to emerge which, as with the measures mentioned above, will contribute to enterprises having a broader range of products (and therefore be more resilient with respect to market crises and crop failure) and also to their use of environmentally-conscious production.
• The project also provides the government with advice on the development of measures which will assist with not only biodiversity but also adapting agriculture to climate change.

Last update: September 2023