Episode #121: Lucio and Pablo Usobiaga

I want to you to try to imagine an ancient lakebed where the decomposing aquatic life at its bottom was piled up within the lake and mixed with branches and other organic material to form islands. Now imagine farming on those islands. Imagine these farms being incredibly productive. So productive that the crops grown on them could feed hundreds of thousands of people. Not only do they feed at an incredible scale without depleting the nutrients in the soil, but they encourage additional life. With intervention, by humans becoming part of the ecosystem rather than dominating it, they actually encourage biodiversity. It sounds like the future, right? Right? Would it blow your mind to know that these farm islands were actually created 2,000 years ago in what is present day Mexico City? It’s shocking, right? Would it blow your mind even more if you know they still exist to this very day?

These farms are called chinampas and the knowledge that was developed here and expanded on throughout the past 2,000 years continues in a place called Xochimilco, within the limits of Mexico City. Today’s guests are the brothers Lucio and Pablo Usobiaga, who founded Arca Tierra, a farm network that includes chinampas farmers, as well as their own farm, and farms from other traditional agricultural systems in and around Mexico City. They also opened the zero-waste restaurant Baldío in 2024, alongside the British chef Douglas McMaster of Silo.

What these guys are doing and how they are doing it should not be underestimated. They are trying to change the conversation around words like peasant and campesino and turn them into the role models we should all look up to. They are creating a vibrant, alternative network of farmers and collaborators that places value on ancestral agricultural systems and those that are protecting them.

What’s important to take away from this and I want you all to think about it into the new year, is how hopeful they are. They are blunt about the challenges ahead and all the awful things that will happen, but they believe in what they are doing. They believe in these farmers and ancient agricultural systems. They understand what it’s going to take to bring them back. I hope that by listening to people like Lucio and Pablo, you do as well. We really can do this, all of us, together.

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Host: Nicholas Gill
Co-host: Juliana Duque
Produced by Nicholas Gill & Juliana Duque
Recording & Editing by New Worlder
Email: [e-mail]
Read more at New Worlder: https://www.newworlder.com