EcoGather will initially serve five partner communities in Bhutan, Colorado, India, Puerto Rico, and Vermont.
When Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit Puerto Rico within weeks of one another in 2017, the record-breaking storms left hundreds of thousands of people without fresh food, clean water, electricity, or shelter for months. Export crops, such as coffee and bananas, were stripped from hillsides, eliminating a large piece of the local economy and important food sources. In the years since the storms, the trauma of the experience has morphed into grave concern. Concern borne of the expectation that super storms will hit the island again. In the age of climate change, it’s hard to know what it will mean to be ready.
In the state of Maharashtra, India, where the effects of climate change are different than in Puerto Rico, the consequences are just as severe. Intense heat from rising temperatures is made less bearable by recurring drought. The land is parched. Monsoon seasons are no longer reliable water bearers. When prayed-for rains do come, they ferociously wash the land of its poor topsoil — degraded by years of tillage, monocropping, and heavy synthetic inputs. The poor conditions and miniscule yields have resulted in an alarming rise in farmer suicides.
Recognizing that communities like these endeavor to become more resilient and prepared to navigate life during this climate emergency, Sterling College — based in Craftsbury, Vermont — has created a collaborative learning network dedicated to the vitality of ecosystems, communities, and economies called EcoGather.
EcoGather combines Sterling’s place-based approach to education with a suite of online tools to foster collaboration, and to share the knowledge necessary for life to thrive. Accessible, affordable, and adaptable through guided lessons, interactive discussions, and intensive, community-based projects, EcoGather is designed to help communities navigate the ecological crises and social challenges driven by extractive approaches to meeting human needs. Challenges that have manifested in climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising inequality. Through EcoGather, these networked communities will become more resilient by locally controlling the production and means of access to nourishing and culturally appropriate foods.
In its initial phase, EcoGather will connect five partner communities in Puerto Rico, India, Bhutan, Colorado, and Vermont, and enable them to compare their strategies, challenges, and successes in building transformative communities and food systems.
Using the expertise of its faculty, alumnx, and extended network of ecological changemakers, Sterling College has begun to co-create a series of 24 modular online courses with the five partner communities. Together they are developing modular learning materials that can be used as a foundation for experiential, project-based learning. The first foundational courses will address Agroecology, Food Systems Thinking, and Communities of Care. Subsequent courses will cover subjects such as Soil Health, Water Management, Seed Saving for Food Sovereignty, Alternative Markets for Small Producers, and Culture, Coalition, and Change.
While Sterling will use its expertise in developing the courses, these are not the only sources of knowledge that will inform the courses. “Deep wisdom exists in communities. It is derived from relationships to place that unfold over time and is revealed through conversation,” observes Sterling’s Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Nicole Civita, a food systems educator and advocate who is leading the development of EcoGather. “Unfortunately, much of the ecological knowledge that enabled humans to live harmoniously with their environs was devalued when community-centered agriculture gave way to global agribusiness — a tech-heavy, extractive, profit-driven enterprise that inures to primarily to the benefit of a few multinational conglomerates.” This is not to say that traditional knowledge and modern advancements are incompatible. It is just a matter of selecting relevant techno