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P R C C

Researchers

The kitchen table is where people from different backgrounds meet, exchange, design, cook, eat and imagine a future of food together. In this section you will find profiles of people who have joined this kitchen table as well as tools, videos, reports, podcasts, videos or recipes that they have developed in collaboration with others. This Archive/Table is composed of four different (main) groups that interact and intersect: chefs, producers, scientists and creatives. Click on any of the sides of the table to read more about what's been cooking.

15.12.2020

Profile

Susana Alejandre Ortiz

CONABIO Oaxaca

Susana is a sociologist by profession, graduated from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana- Xochimilco. Graduated from the Ibero-American University in Ecology, Sustainable Development and Environmental Management. With more than 30 years of experience in sustainable development themes. She is currently Coordinator of the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) of the Oaxaca office, and Coordinator of the Mexican Agrobiodiversity project.

Her experience has been to promote territorial collaboration models in the state of Oaxaca, with the aim of building mechanisms and strategies that help conserve Mexican agrobiodiversity and agroecosystems. Through gathering and generating information focused on 12 native crops, among which stand out the products of “la Milpa” corn, beans, gourds, quelite and other wild relatives, in direct collaboration with farmers and communities. As well as promoting support for participatory projects to strengthen the establishment of community or family seed banks. Promote advocacy actions on public policies that promote the conservation of traditional agriculture and the process of evolution under domestication. Promote link to fair markets through the application of value chains, labeling, collectives and cooperatives, among others.

In the last 8 years, together with other institutions, she has coordinated the Agrobiodiversity Fair that brings together 450 farmers from all over the state of Oaxaca and other states of Mexico to exchange knowledge and seeds and thereby preserve this important genetic material that represents security and food sovereignty of Oaxaca and Mexico in general.

She has been part of the Colaboratory Kitchen project since 2020.

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.