GB Teacher Certification in Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean
Agustín Medina and Marisol Tenorio were Ecology Action Interns at the Golden Rule Garden Mini-Farm in 2007. Working closely with Juan Manuel Martinez of ECOPOL, Agustín and Marisol run the GROW BIOINTENSIVE Certified Teacher Program in Latin America, and have their own Mini-Farm—El Mezquite—in Aguascalientes state, Mexico. We began our GROW BIOINTENSIVE (GB) journey in 2006, with Ecology Action internships at the Golden Rule Mini-Farm site in Willits, California, USA. That year, we participated in our first GROW BIOINTENSIVE Teacher Certification workshop and qualified as Basic-Level Teachers. Returning to Mexico, we started our GB garden on November 2, 2007, dug into the process of learning to practice organic sustainable agriculture, and decided our calling was to be GB teachers. We kept our Basic-Level Certification until 2008. In 2009, we achieved Intermediate-Level Certification. In 2010, we began giving 5-day Basic-Level GB Teacher Certification workshops with Juan Manuel Martínez and ECOPOL; the first was in Patzcuaro, Michoacán State, in Mexico. We continued giving workshops into 2011 and 2012. People attended from Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Japan, Spain, Colombia and Mexico, some working in different environmental activities, and others simply wanting to be GB farmers with the ability to teach, as we were when we began. In 2013, we gave our first GB 5-day Workshop outside Mexico, in Ecuador. Most attendees were Ecuadorian farmers, as well as some foresters from Nicaragua. At this point we began to experience an in-depth understanding of the meaning—transcendence?—of the certification process. In 2014, we returned to Willits, to The Jeavons Center, where we participated in 2 months of training with John Jeavons to qualify for Advanced-Level Certification. We collaborated with John and Ecology Action, giving our first 5-day Certification Workshop for Basic-Level GB Teachers in the USA, adding another layer of our understanding of this important work. The same year, thanks to John's training, we received the Advanced-Level and Master-Level Teacher Certification in GROW BIOINTENSIVE Sustainable Mini-Farming. We began to see the present and the future through a different lens: our work and the work of those we teach is not only about giving or receiving a certificate; it is recognizing the life process working through GB farmers as they develop deep knowledge in growing soil and food in harmony with nature. 2015 found us in Peru and Nicaragua, certifying more teachers. This was a magical year: for the first time all the people attending the workshop were farmers, campesinos, local people wanting to grow soil and food and truly understanding what that means. 2016 was our first Intermediate-Level GB Teacher Certification workshop in Nicaragua, including diet design and more advanced topics. 2017 was our first European workshop, in Italy. In 2018, we gave our first Intermediate-Level certificates in Nicaragua, with John Jeavons. And in May of 2019, our most recent workshop was in Spain, with farmers and people who really understand this important method and work. The result of our journey so far: 95 GB Teachers certified, including ourselves. 21 from Mexico (18 Basic, 1 Intermediate, 2 Master), 21 from Nicaragua (16 Basic, 5 Intermediate), 17 from Spain (2 Intermediate, 15 Basic), 9 from Peru (all Basic), 8 from Ecuador (all Basic), 7 from Italy (all Basic), 6 from Costa Rica (all Basic), 3 from France (all Basic), 2 Basic from Panama and 1 Basic from Portugal. So…what do these numbers, years, and important work really mean? They mean that the people we certify, the GB Teachers around the world we have worked with, have an in-depth understanding of how to grow food, grow soil, and grow people (themselves and others), sustainably, in harmony with the Earth. If they were not farmers before, now they are GB farmers; if they were farmers before, now they are better farmers, empowered farmers, GB Farmers who work for their communities, for the environment, for sustainability, for life. And most importantly, these teachers teach hundreds of farmers to use GROW BIOINTENSIVE every year, and those farmers teach others in turn. This is the process, farmer to farmer, campesino a campesino. Certification creates more farmers, who teach other farmers, for life. GROW BIOINTENSIVE is life for more life, and we are proud to be a part of that process!
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