Viadeo

Viadeo

Water monitoring in Mar del Plata

View of the Corrientes Creek



Describing the stream
walk at Corrientes Creek in Faro Norte, Mar del Plata






Patients, students and proffessor M. L. Tejón of the Day Hospital of the Psicopathological Clinic "del Mar" of Mar del Plata and ASF carried on a descriptive stream walk at the Corrientes Creek in Faro Norte, Mar del Plata on August 28th, 2007.

Pachamama Fiesta in Mar del Plata

A cross cultural event in which the Aborigen Community of Hornaditas, Quebrada de Humahuaca, NW Argentina enacted the ceremony of Pachamama in the Buenos Aires city of Mar del Plata.
Regional food including andean potatoes, quinoa and corn was served to the general public
Andean music helped create an appropriate climate for the ceremony

.

Strengthtening local infrastructure in Rachaite community, Jujuy, NW Argentina

An andean greenhouse constructed with local materials in the community of Rachaite, Jujuy, NW Argentina. This infrastructure is needed to produce clean potato seed of local native potato varieties.

Participatory potato breeding in Hornaditas, Jujuy, NW Argentina

Peasents and ASF selecting future potato varieties in Hornaditas, Jujuy, NW Argentina. The use of local germplasm is a strong contribution to the conservation of biodiversity.

Fraternity in Hornaditas, Jujuy, Argentina 2007

Peasents and ASF sharing lunch after a hard day´s work in Hornaditas, a coya community in NW Argentina (Jujuy Province).

Our Projects
I.- “Agriculture For Everybody” Program.
The mission is to foster self-esteem and dignity among mentally handicapped people, communities that suffered urban violence, youth at risk and freedom deprived persons.
*By learning to cultivate plants they develop skills such as attention span and problem solving.
*By learning to follow plant growth protocols they increase their abilities to develop a self-supportive spirit.


II.- Community based Water Monitoring.
Water issues are central to both human development and health.
The objective is to build local capacity for water monitoring (quality and quantity) and management through community based approaches.
While developing a sense of community service and volunteerism, citizen groups increase knowledge and skills, allowing them to play a critical role in natural resources management in their communities.
The use and success of monitoring technology for citizen groups in the collection of credible data is well documented (Alabama Water Watch and Global Water Watch).


III.- “Agriculture for Future Generations”
Courses to help teachers to use agriculture as a tool in class. Plant matters are great tools for teachers. ASF together with JMG programs will help increase the participation of young people in agricultural matters in Latin America. JMG participants have identified the following advantages:
•youth were more enthusiastic about learning, improved teamwork skills and self-understanding
•enhanced classroom/educational program
•has encouraged students to get involved in projects to serve their community
•increased youth interest in their surrounding environment and in science projects.
•contributed to higher academic standards.
Exchange of young agriculturalists to be trained in enthomology, breeding and phytopathology among private and official institutes in order to promote enthousiasm and interest in the applied aspects of these important biosciences, to some extent shadowed by the drift towards biotechnology.

IV.- “Usable Biodiversity Maintenance”
This Project aims to the skills of subsistance farmers in biodiversity conservation and use. The initial focus and model crop is the potato.
The most relevant aspects taken in consideration involve training in :
agronomic aspects for crop management
Seed production
Participatory breeding
Infrastructure, plant basic material and organizational skills are given to the communities
Las poblaciones objetivos son productores de papa de variedades nativas en el NOA, agricultores de subsistencia en la Patagonia, comunidades wichis del Chaco seco y comunidades marginales de los grandes centros urbanos.
The communities participating in these project are:
–Native communities dedicated to the growth of ancient potato varieties in NW Argentina
–Subsistance farmers in Patagonia, Argentina
–Wichi indian communities in the Dry Chaco, Argentina
–Marginal periurban communities in Argentina