La Semilla Food Center works to foster a healthy, self-reliant, fair, and sustainable food system in the Paso del Norte region of southern New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. La Semilla is grounded in a root-cause approach that centers justice, equity, power analysis, and respectful land stewardship.

La Semilla works with—and learns from—its neighbors, elders, and youth in order to increase educational and entrepreneurial opportunities, food access, food sovereignty, and resources for our border communities. As a land-based organization, La Semilla honors its desert ecosystem and works to challenge extractive systems that contribute to the continued degradation of our environme

Through five programs, La Semilla works to build robust relationships and create empowering spaces for youth and families to grow and cook healthy and culturally-relevant food, create positive change, and foster connections among food, health, and local economies. One such program is Edible Education, which empowers youth to understand how food is grown, consumed, and impacts the vitality of our communities, ecosystems, and ancestral heritage.

The CSC is supporting La Semilla to refresh its Edible Education program by applying a soil keeping lens. Grounding their capacity building in this ethos aims to deepen youth’s practical knowledge of how to care for the land while also providing them with a powerful metaphor and introduction to systems transformation.