This month, CASA Collective along with other organizations, agricultural producers, and community members throughout Mexico, the United States, and Canada participated in a four day workshop, called From the Field to the Mouth. The workshop included group discussions on food issues, such as food policy, the impacts of agriculture and nutrition on migration, transgenetics, and community based food systems. The gathering also included practical workshops, such as making and maintaining a recycled compost bin, making jams, and propagating plants, as well as presentations on various projects throughout the area, and beyond, such as a youth driven community based permaculture project in the Sierra Mixes of Oaxaca, a seed bank to preserve native seed in the Mixteca region, and an ecovillage project in the Southern Sierra Mountains. The workshop also included meals and times to get to know other participants.

Our participation in the gathering offered a chance to learn, connect, and examine. There were chances to discuss and share and formulate ideas with diverse people on issues important to us, as well as to learn practical new skills in a fun way that we can use in our daily lives, such as the newly installed recycled compost bin in the house, made out of a box and milk cartons. It also gave us a chance to get to know other projects and create bonds through conversation and analytical discussion that can be a basis for future solidarity work.

This event also gave us the opportunity to analyze critically our own rolls as participants in this gathering, as people living and working in Oaxaca, and as members of a growingly economically globalized community. With such a diverse invitee list, the workshop setting gave a unique experience of collaboration and sharing among people from different work and life patterns on the subject of food. These invitees ranged from small-scale Oaxaca farmers to organizers of community based food projects abroad, to employees of International organizations. While this unique gathering allowed for interesting dialogue, it also opened the floor to privilege dynamics. This could be noticed in clashes of participants comments on the grounds of cultural understanding, or lack there of. On the other hand, other North America participants described humbling learning experiences of what another culture had to offer.

The gathering was also a way for us to examine our own contradictions. As a collective with food sovereignty as one of our work objectives, we have to take the time to examine what we consume and how it might affect larger global and cultural systems. As human beings with basic needs, we too get caught up in these systems. While within our house, we do have some level of consciousness about market choices and the value of growing our own vegetables and herbs, there is still much we lack, much we have to learn and much work to do from the inside of our collective out. There are a number of ways to go about doing this. One is researching and analyzing the political systems that dictate our food sources, and working in solidarity with those affected. On the community and household level, one can work to grow their own food, get to know local small-scale producers and buy within the community, and buy raw materials and cook or make products from scratch to avoid levels of processing.

As many societies enter this holiday season, various questions of consumerism arise, especially for people in the U.S. who participate in the day alter Thanksgiving custom of Christmas shopping. While each consumer has their own choices to make, a critical analysis of these choices can make for a more responsible holiday season and lifestyle.