When the pandemic shut down produce flows to the city, chinampas—human-built island farms first built by the predecessors of the Aztecs—experienced an unexpected revival.
As the food system morphed, so did the chinampas.Before Spanish colonizers arrived, a complex of five lakes spanning about 2,000 square miles covered the valley that is now home to Mexico City.
Darío Velasco and his father, Victor Velasco, clear land in their chinampa. Their island is a 40-minute paddle from the edge of the wetland. This deep into it, the only sounds come from wildlife in the canals, birds flapping overhead, and lowing cows and bleating goats.The farmers soon developed a strategy of starting seeds ahead of planting, using the fertile canal sediments in compact mini-beds near the island edges.
De Valle gently presses a seedling into the rich, nearly black soil. His chinampa is loaded with produce: corn and lettuces, squashes and herbs—enough, and enough variety, for a whole meal. Cranes and egrets stalk the shores nearby; a monarch butterfly flits past. Endangered amphibians called axolotls sometimes appear in the canal running through the farm.
In contrast, de Valle and a cadre of others are working from the old agricultural model—updated for a more complicated market. They still dredge sediment for new chapínes every month and turn all their own soil by hand, says Victor Velasco, a 3rd-generation chinampero, because the soft soil compresses under the weight of heavy machinery. They still paddle tippy canoes to and from the fields.
What’s more, the cooling capacity of their network of canals keeps temperatures in check not only in Xochimilco but across the city; estimates suggest losing the wetland zone could drive local temperatures up by several degrees Celsius and cut rainfall by as much as 40 percent. But the COVID-19 pandemic had several unexpected effects. First, supply chain disruptions and pandemic lockdowns left Mexico City desperately short of produce. In that void, many residents remembered their own local Eden: the chinampas.Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.: Fresh spinach, dill, and parsley from the Olintlalli farm will be sold the next day at the Mercado de las Cosas Verdes.
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