Mexican farmer honored for environmental work

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story yesterday about a Mixtec farmer from Mexico who formed a non-profit that promotes soil conservation, sustainable agriculture and irrigation to improve the livelihoods of the Mixtec Highlands' 350,000 inhabitants.

The small group ecologists led by Jesus Leon organized more than 1,500 small farmers in 12 communities to reverse hundreds of years of environmental damage. For the effort, Leon is one of seven winners of San Francisco's Goldman Environmental Prize, a $150,000 award for pioneering environmental activists.

The story included a comment from Miguel Altieri, a professor of entomology at UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources.

"What's impressive is that they did this all from scratch," he is quoted. "Money is not the crucial factor here. It's their ability to work bottom-up, creating farmer-to-farmer networks and promoting low-tech solutions that tap local knowledge."

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