Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, México: On April 9 Alianza Cero Basura (ACB) signed an agreement with the National Institute of Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research (INIFAP), to establish a community-led organic waste farm in Todos Santos. The farm will be dedicated to processing large quantities of organic waste, and researching the most effective compost methods for the local environment and materials. The farm will serve as an education and information hub to the community, expanding community-wide systems and growing local composting capability. It is the first community-led organic waste farm in Baja California Sur. 

“We are tremendously excited about this program with INIFAP” states Juan Salvador Aceves, Program Director of ACB. “With this farm we will now be able to achieve our goal of diverting at least 30% of all organic waste produced by our community away from the landfill and into producing high quality soil products.” 

Jaresy Plata, the ACB Organic Waste Program Manager, notes the importance of this number. “Fully 60% of the waste we produce as a community is organic matter. This partnership with INIFAP allows us to think big and to fulfill our dream of a community-wide system that repairs soil and feeds animals throughout BCS.”

Carlos Cabada, Director of INIFAP’s Campo Experimental Todos Santos (CETODS) where the farm will be located, is excited about the huge research potential of the Community Organic Waste Farm “Todos Santos and El Pescadero are agricultural communities whose soil has been depleted by decades of fertilizer and pesticide use. With this project we will be able to determine the most effective means for composting and soil repair in the area. We will work closely with Alianza Cero Basura to generate all the protocols and information necessary so that this type of project can be expanded and replicated, and our hope is that other Baja Sur communities can learn from our work here in Todos Santos.”