Strengthening agroecological practices

Guatemala

Asociación de Mujeres Ixpiyakok (ADEMI), or Ixpiyakok Women’s Association, founded in 1984, works with 1700 indigenous Mayan women and children in rural Guatemala to strengthen agroecological practices, promote local economic development, and support health and education infrastructure.

ADEMI is a winner of the United Nations Equator Prize, which recognizes local sustainable development solutions for people, nature, and resilient communities. Their practices focus on producing food, native seeds, and organic fertilizers, recovering natural resources and freshwater sources, practice, implementation, and replication of ancestral knowledge for food sovereignty, and preserving indigenous practices for animal husbandry of goats, chickens, turkeys, and rabbits that can provide food access for families in the short-term.