Women across California who are farmworkers will get help to maintain home and community gardens using fewer pesticides.
It is the goal of a grant from the GreenLatinos Justicia y Equidad Fund. The advocacy group Alianza Nacional de Campesinas will use the grant to fund the Madre Tierra, or Mother Earth program.
Mily Trevino-Sauceda, executive director of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, said Madre Tierra is a space where farmworker women come together to grow food for their own consumption.
“Using ancestral practices, farmworker women keep alive cherished traditions from around the world,” Trevino-Sauceda explained. “We are looking forward to having the resources to increase the necessary skills in the struggle to combat the climate crisis through implementing sustainable practices.”
Alianza is one of five environmental justice groups across the U.S. to receive the grant. The Madre Tierra program trains women on regenerative farming practices to minimize the use of pesticides. The group works with eight partner organizations and serves 200 families with small backyard farms or parcels of fertile land.
Trevino-Sauceda pointed out pesticides are a major threat to workers’ health.
“It’s a new way of thinking about how can we prevent the use and misuse of pesticides,” Trevino-Sauceda emphasized. “The chemicals are causing asthma, and harming women who are pregnant and working in the fields. And many of our members have children with special needs or deformities.”
A study from the Pesticide Action Network released last year found pesticides contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and make agricultural systems more vulnerable to climate change.
