Site allows Hollister residents to grow food, learn organic
techniques they can use
On Sundays, a group of San Benito County families gather at the
Agricultural and Land-Based Training Association farm in Salinas to
work in the Oaxacan Children’s garden. The 1
½-acre garden was started two and a half years ago by the Center
for Binational Indigenous Oaxacan Development, a nonprofit that
works with the families. And this year, nine families are involved
with maintaining the plot.
Site allows Hollister residents to grow food, learn organic techniques they can use
On Sundays, a group of San Benito County families gather at the Agricultural and Land-Based Training Association farm in Salinas to work in the Oaxacan Children’s garden. The 1 ½-acre garden was started two and a half years ago by the Center for Binational Indigenous Oaxacan Development, a nonprofit that works with the families. And this year, nine families are involved with maintaining the plot.
“It is mostly dedicated to indigenous Oaxacan families because they face unique challenges,” said Dvera Saxton, who is working on a dissertation about the relationship between different kinds of farm work on different styles and sizes of farms. “It would be great in Hollister to see a homeless garden akin to that in Santa Cruz, or school gardens. We hope that it inspires other people to take the initiative.”
The Center for Binational Indigenous Oaxacan Development is hosting a fundraising dinner Oct. 22, from 6:30 to 9 p.m., at Mars Hill Coffehouse, 610 San Benito St., in Hollister, to raise money for the purchase of a tractor. Tickets are $25-$100, and can be paid for at the event, though reservations are suggested. Tours of the garden at the ALBA farm and a question and answer session will be hosted before the dinner, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. In-kind donations and monetary donations will also be accepted.
The Oaxacan families maintain the garden, from sowing the soil to planting vegetables and fruits to harvesting the items at the end of the season.
“The families really value teaching their kids these skills,” Saxton said. “A lot really participate in a really engaged way. It’s important culturally, but also it’s a way of life should these folks return to Oaxaca. Or they can maintain those values here.”
Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, a Berkeley PhD student, also did fieldwork on her dissertation at the children’s garden. She spent a year and a half following the progress of the garden.
“I watched it from the ground up,” she said. “The most basic benefit is for people who have low income and low access to high-quality food. It provides good quality food.”
Minkoff-Zern’s research focused on food insecurity for farm workers.
“They don’t always have access to it,” she said. “We were looking at this as an example of a coping mechanism … It is a pretty unique project in terms of who the population is and how much the community themselves has made it happen.”
She watched the garden go from an idea to reality.
“They weren’t sure it would come to fruition,” she said. “Over the two years, they’ve gone through two different leaderships – they call it a committee – and it’s been good that some leaders left and others came in. It still sustained itself.”
Saxton said the families often spend time in the garden on the weekends, or sometimes on weekdays after work. Most of the adults work in the agricultural industry, either as farm workers or in local cannery or packaging plants.
Since starting the children’s garden, three of the families moved on to work their own farm. Two have rented plots in the Hollister area, and the third has a plot rented in Hollister as well as a plot at the ALBA farm, where he is continuing to learn organic farming techniques.
“Farm workers don’t always have much autonomy over their own work,” Saxton said. “They are very skilled workers, but they are not autonomous. They are always answering to someone else.”
But the garden offers a chance for the men and women to learn new skills, and to set their own hours.
“They are also learning how to grow new things that are marketable here,” Saxton said.
The group grows a lot of the same crops that are seen across the Central Coast such as lettuce, broccoli and berries. But they have also branched out into the Asian vegetables that have a growing market. They do make room for some traditional Oaxacan staples such as corn, beans, squash and tomatillas.
“They are linking in to sell to other farmers that can take that to market because they are more established,” Saxton said, of the three families that are working commercial farm plots. “The other challenge is they are not certified organic, but they are using organic practices.”
Saxton explained that if a farmer is working on land that has not been certified organic for the last three years, they have to work on getting that certification. She said the primary focus of the dinner is to raise money for a tractor that will make the children’s garden sustainable, but that can also be shared by the other three families who are working their own plots. Saxton estimated that a basic, used model would cost $12,000.
“It’s huge for them because these are people working all day in the fields,” Minkoff-Zern said, of a tractor. “Reducing the labor in their own garden or plot will save hours of work for them.”
To highlight the importance of the garden, the fundraising dinner will include produce grown by the families in traditional Oaxacan dishes. Some of the featured dishes will include a goat stew, a homemade salsa and a vegetarian dish with cooked squash and salsa. Saxton said they are also looking to purchase Mexican bananas because many of the indigenous families grew up farming bananas.
“The bananas we eat here are bred for the market,” Saxton said. “They don’t have the diversity that bananas have in other parts of the world.”
Saxton has worked alongside the families during some of their gardening days.
“I was helping weed one day and I told a young girl to pick the purple weeds, and she did it,” Saxton said, adding that the children sometimes play in the fields while their parents work. “She didn’t need any additional instructions.”
Oaxacan children’s garden fundraising dinner
The Center for Binational Indigenous Oaxacan Development is sponsoring a Oaxacan Children’s Garden Fundraising Dinner to raise money for the garden project. The dinner will be Oct. 22, from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., at Mars Hill Coffeehouse, 610 San Benito St., in Hollister. Optional garden tours will be available from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., with a farmer question and answer period. Tickets are $25-100 by donation, paid at the event. Cash or checks payable to CDBIO. Please add memo on checks: “Oaxacan Children’s Garden Tractor.” To reserve tickets, call Dvera Saxton at 610-742-5066 or e-mail
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