Located at the South of the country, the Association of Small and Medium Producers from Villanueva del Sauce is made up by 300 vegetable and fruit producers, and small cattle farmers. Tomato, peach, pepper, onion and corn are the main crops produced.

With the presence of children, producers, municipal authorities, people from Sauce and also representatives from the Network of Groups of Rural Women, the activity showed the expectations the community has in terms of alternative ways to achieve food sovereignty.

During the opening, organic producer Pablo Calleros stated that changing conventional production to organic production is a process that requires time and capacity. The goal of this new team is to incorporate “agroecological practices”.

Sauce community is familiar with the negative consequences of agribusiness: the population has been rejecting for the past two years the production of GM soy in fields rented by a poultry company, and created a special committee to analyze the use of lands.

Today, Canelones -the department where more food is produced in the country – is considered free from air sprayings, mostly due to this process started by the population.

Gustavo Cabrera, representative of the National Commission for Rural Promotion, organization made up by Uruguayan family producers, highlighted the initiative to find new paths as an alternative to the agribusiness model, which in his opinion “concentrates wealth and only considers people as workforce”.

Cabrera thinks that the actions taken by Sauce producers will serve as an example for other organizations, conveying the message that exploring new paths is necessary and possible.