24th Provincial Seed Fair in Catamarca for the Exchange of Native and Local Seeds

 In a global context of extreme violence that has escalated into various forms of war, life—and, above all, the planet’s habitability for the human species—is seriously and gravely threatened. Meanwhile, those who hold the power to make decisions on behalf of the people remain entrenched in their many layers of denial. And today, more than ever, the relationship between the global and the local is glaringly evident.

Thus, in Catamarca, where extractive violence wages war against us by exploiting, plundering, and poisoning our sacred resources, local governments—puppets of corporate power—remain blind and deaf to the Earth’s rebellious cry. As we know, Catamarca is not an isolated case in Argentina, nor in Latin America and the Caribbean, nor in Africa, nor in the Global South. We recognize that this violence is cruel and widespread; yet the Earth’s strength and courage is far-reaching, for this strength is ancestral and the spring which gave rise to Life.

Throughout these more than 500 years of imperial, capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal wars, the Earth has made its voice heard through the Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala and Africa, right up to the present day. Today, as the war intensifies, that nonviolent struggle has become an unwavering voice in the slogan “Water is worth more than gold,” proclaimed by countless assemblies, communities, and socio-environmental organizations throughout the world. And the Earth itself cries out with the peoples: its elements are shaken; its climates and the gases that regulate life-sustaining conditions become unstable and unpredictable; the illness caused by the long war endured manifests itself in devastation and phenomena labeled “natural” when they are not.

And we do not merely cry out and resist; we also re-exist through collective experiences that open up possible futures of lives worth living. For example, the forms of re-existence emerging in the Bolsón de Fiambalá, a land formation in the Andean foothills (1), with a landscape of immeasurable beauty and mystery. Mystery in the face of the invisible balance of living energies that combine extreme temperatures, winds, snow, semidesert aridity, brackish and fresh waters, with human and non-human cultivation—all of which generate and reproduce Life.

Photos by BePe: Seed Fair festivities in Fianbalá, Catamarca, Argentina

There, where corporate power sees only speculative profit and calls the object of imperial possession the “Lithium Triangle,” mega-corporations have set up shop under the protection of local governments that call themselves democratic. Currently operated by the Zijin Mining Group, the high-Andean Tres Quebradas lagoons are being plundered of lithium to fuel weapons of war and luxury goods in the Global North. As is well known, the destruction caused by extractive mining is never limited to the mine site itself: in this case, it irrevocably affects an entire ecosystem of perennial snowfields, surface and groundwater—both brackish and fresh—that sustain unique animal and plant species and maintain the climatic balance between the high peaks and the agriculturally productive valleys.

It is precisely in one of those valleys—the one nestled in the Bolsón de Fiambalá—that peasant families live in villages whose names allude to the local geography or recall ancient indigenous terms: Medanitos, Tatón, Chuquisaca, La Mesada, Palo Blanco, Quebrada de Zárate, Las Papas, La Ciénaga, Antinaco, Quebrada del Cerco. People, families, communities bearing the colonial wound etched into the memory of their bodies and their lands, where the monoculture of grapevines—to name just one of those wounds—accelerated the processes of soil desertification and the impoverishment of life. However, despite the imposition of a capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal system, these families came together as Peoples, transforming the stigma of those wounds into courage, dignity, and organized struggle.

It did not happen overnight; nor did it follow a linear, unidirectional path. Because becoming a community involves engaging in processes of community dialogue, the course of which is not the focus of this article. We do, however, wish to highlight the fundamental importance of these processes for wisely safeguarding the ways of life that sustain the community with sustainability and justice.

It was during the final years of the 1980s when the gatherings, the collective readings of contexts, and the critical interpretation of situations referred to as “gaps between rich and poor” (2)… gradually expanded into circles of analysis and reflection, which added complexity to existential issues and defined praxis as a form of communal struggle. When the time came to harvest the first fruits from the gardens, they felt that Mother Earth, caressed by peasant hands, had regained her power to bring forth life and had given them food…

26th Provincial Catamarca Seed Fair Poster 2026

Nearly forty years after those early organizational efforts, these farming families are part of ACAMPA, the Abaucán Farmers’ Association—named after the river that provides them with food and a sense of identity. They farm using agroecological methods and live in community with a sense of shared identity. They run a community FM radio station whose broadcasts reach all the communities in Bolsón. And, since 2001, they have been organizing—in collaboration with BePe—a seed fair featuring native and heirloom seeds.

Going against the grain of the decisions made by those who call themselves politicians and business people—but who are merely modern-day versions of the conquerors of the 15th through 18th centuries—the Peoples of Bolsón de Fiambalá re-exist in defiance of the systems of death imposed for millennia. They unmask the lies of those who claim to be representatives of democracy and agents of progress. They exercise political and economic power in the service of the reproduction of Life.

On 12th September this year, the fair—which had begun with a dozen stalls—spanned a grounds that accommodated more than 200 tables where farming families displayed the fruits they had harvested, raised, and processed. The 24th Provincial Fair for the Exchange of Native and Creole Seeds took place. What had once been a local event has spread to various parts of the province of Catamarca and to the neighboring provinces of Santiago del Estero and La Rioja. What began as a display of seeds expanded to include seedlings, farm animals, nuts, sweet and savory preserves, various types of textile crafts, wines, and fruit syrups… and most importantly; the scale of this growth also served to foster values, promote autonomous and dignified ways of life, and share transformative knowledge and practices.

While the dominant powers expand the frontiers of extraction in the Global South—currently in the name of the misnamed “energy transition”—grassroots policies have been building ecologically sustainable territories open to economically independent horizons. In the face of the denial of the future engineered by oligarchic elites, these small-scale initiatives scattered across various regions of the Global South build bridges toward possible and necessary futures.

References:

1. It is a depression or flat valley, completely surrounded by mountains, with no access to the sea. In this case, the basin—with an area of approximately 2,000 km²—borders the puna, a desert high plateau ranging in elevation from 3,000 to 6,000 meters above sea level. Both regions are characterized by the presence of volcanoes and high-Andean lakes (as well as salt flats in the puna).

2. An explicit way of describing socioeconomic inequality during those years; it served as a key to a critical interpretation of reality.