Welcome at the website of Colaboratory Kitchen. Your currently used browser is outdated, probably insecure, and may cause display errors on this website. Here you can download the most recent browsers: browsehappy.com

P R C C
Researchers

14.9.2021

Loma Bonita, Sto Domingo T., México

Ingredient

Ingredients from the Kitchen Gardens

Documenting local food plant diversity in Loma Bonita and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec

Our project sites are embedded in different social and ecological contexts, and each site has a specific richness and diversity of edible food plants. To obtain information on the diversity people manage and use we executed plant inventories in the homegardens in Loma Bonita (Chiapas) and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec (Oaxaca).

We focused on home gardens, since they are often the most diverse land-use system. Home gardens provide a mini-overview of the local food crop diversity because they contain a lot of plants that can also be found in the natural surroundings and agroecosystems where people produce or collect food plants. Home gardens also serve as living seed banks and farmers´ experimentation sites.

The local farmers in Loma Bonita and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec were pleased to share their knowledge on food plants during the plant inventories. The results will be used to elaborate illustrative material on local food plant diversity and contribute to the exchange of knowledge among the community members.

Data will also be used to identify crops species and variants that are less common and which should be included in future project activities (e.g., food forest, seed exchange, biocultural archive) by following the principle of “conservation through use”.

Documentación de especies y escalas, 2021. Foto Claudia Heindorf
Huerto familiar en Loma Bonita, Chiapas, 2021. Foto Claudia Heindorf
Huerto familiar en Santo Domingo Tomaltepec, 2021. Foto por Claudia Heindorf
Poster of ingredients from Santo Domingo Tomaltepec, result of research by Claudia Heindorf, 2021. Design Mariana Martínez

Research held from March to April 2021 by Claudia Heindorf in collaboration with producers and families from Loma Bonita and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec.

Download the poster of ingredients from Santo Domingo Tomaltepec Here!

The kitchen is a social place, a com­mon place to gather and connect. It is a place to share not only food, but stories, ideas, aspirations and initiatives. Colaboratory Kitchen is an ongoing mobile and on-site project that brings farmers, scientists, creatives and cooks together around the kitchen table to connect, exchange knowledge and prototype new trans-disciplinary solutions to farming; a test ground for ideas that conciliate land restoration, conservation, food production and better livelihood in farming communities. A response to the lack of connection between disciplines that are key for new alternatives towards more sustain­able and just futures.

The questions at stake are: How do we bridge scientific and local knowledge? What kind of interdisciplinary projects can we create towards a better livelihood and ecological resilience of farmer communities? How can we conserve the environment and its biodiversity in balance with sustainable food production and pair local consumption to global demand?

We create a space for a trans-disciplinary community to grow and take action, by sharing and cooking futures together.

The project was initiated in 2016 as a collaboration between Cascoland and the Forefront Project (WUR, UNAM), a joint effort to design spaces and tools of communication and action towards strengthening socio-ecological bonds, south of the Lacandona Jungle, Chiapas, México. Now a days the scheme is being developed in three rural locations in Mexico: Santo Domingo Tomaltepex, Oaxaca, Xochimilco, Mexico City and Loma Bonita, Chiapas, as a collaboration with UNAM, local organizations and a range of collaborations from professionals in different disciplines.