Mexico City’s floating gardens have fed people for hundreds of years. Now they’re threatened

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Cassandra Garduño squinted in the sunlight, her pink boots smudged by dirt as she gazed out over her family's chinampa — one of the islands first built up by the Aztecs with fertile mud from the bottom of a lake that, later drained, would one day become Mexico City.

Food from these islands has fed people for hundreds of years, but the chinampas are under threat from urbanization. The produce grown here doesn't fetch much money, and many families are abandoning the ancient practice to rent out or sell their land for more lucrative uses such as soccer fields.

“People don’t want to farm anymore,” said Garduño. “They don’t see it as a necessity, they don’t want to produce, and people don’t want to buy the products.”

Some of those remaining, like Garduño, are banding together to preserve and promote the traditional use of the chinampas.

“None of this can exist without human hands, the hands of those who worked here and created the chinampa a thousand years ago,” she said on a recent morning as the smell of celery growing nearby filled the air.

The gardens crisscrossed by canals in the capital's southern Xochimilco borough are built up from layers of dredged soil, held together by tall, thin ahuejotes — a kind of willow tree — planted around their perimeter. Xochimilco has more than 2,500 acres of protected land owned by generations of local chinamperos, as those who farm the islands are known.

Garduño’s earliest memories of her family’s chinampa came from peering through her grandparents’ window at the plot of land and watching canoes weave in and out of the canals. Even then, she saw how the chinampas were deteriorating under pressure from urbanization and as some farmers began to drop the practice.

When her grandfather died in 2010 and her uncles didn't want to carry on, Garduño took it upon herself to learn and conserve generations of farming. Her neighbors and relatives were skeptical at first, but she bought land for her own chinampa from a friend's uncle in 2020 and now grows an assortment of produce, including sunflowers, eggplant, and the Mexican marigold “cempasuchil.”

Now the 32-year-old Garduño is one of the growing collective called Chinampa Refuge, started by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and she and other famers encourage chinamperos to preserve their land. They follow ancient growing techniques but are trying new commercial approaches to compete with cheaper produce grown on massive farms elsewhere in Mexico. That includes a special tag — Etiqueta Chinampera — that tells buyers the produce came from a chinampa, and may tout things like water quality or the chinampa's status as a biodiversity refuge.

“Change comes with educating the new generations,” said Garduño. “Talking about the origins and efforts to conserve and why it’s important to do it.”

Luis Zambrano, an ecologist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico who has worked in Xochimilco for decades, said the fields are largely self-sustaining. Nourished by the lake, they can produce three to five crops of vegetables a year without the need of chemicals or irrigation, he said.

Moreover, the ecosystem of Xochimilco benefits the sprawling city. Many different species of birds and fish thrive there, and the extensive canals help reduce the city's overall temperature, he said.

But now, on weekends, it's common to see more soccer players boating to islands in their jerseys and cleats than farmers tending their crops. The soccer fields stretch for miles along the canals after what Zambrano called “a massive increase” over the past two to three years.

In Xochimilco, many people are reluctant to talk about transforming their chinampas to soccer fields. One landowner who declined to be identified for fear of legal or community backlash said keeping the chinampas productive required more work and financial investment and yielded less revenue. Instead, she has established multiple businesses on her land — a soccer field for weekend games, a food stand and kayaking tours for foreign visitors.

“If you do well (farming) you could earn $5,000 to $10,000 (100,000 to 200,000 pesos) a year," Garduño said. "In the tourist area you could have that within a couple of weekends.”

But converting the agricultural fields carries ecological impact. While traditional farming methods avoid insecticides and fertilizers, the soccer fields are another story.

“It doesn’t look that detrimental because there’s no construction,” said Zambrano. But “it’s just as damaging because the amount of chemicals that are used, the amount of pollution that is generated is very, very large.”

The chinampas are among the significant features that led Mexico City’s historic center and Xochimilco to be recognized as a world heritage site by UNESCO. But any protective measures are up to federal, state and local authorities. Carlos Vasquez, director of the Natural Protected Areas under Mexico City’s Environmental Department, said they are working on proposals to address the soccer fields.

“Many are counter to the conservation of the ecosystems,” he said. “We’re looking to regulate these activities.”

After a long day’s work out in the sun, Garduño and some neighboring farmers congregate under Garduño’s makeshift hut for a feast of chicken and tortillas. They catch up on their tasks and outline what’s left to do.

Juan Ávalos, 63, and his brother Salvador Gonzalez Ávalos, 55, have been working on chinampas all their lives. Their family has several plots in Xochimilco's San Gregorio neighborhood. A year ago, after some convincing by Garduño, the brothers joined Chinampa Refuge to adopt a more holistic approach to their farming.

Salvador said the approach is a continuous reminder of his family's legacy in maintaining the ancient practices — something they want to pass on to their grandchildren.

“That’s something we need to work on as grandparents,” he said. “That they integrate themselves with a taste for this earth.”

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Amateur soccer players travel in a traditional canoe in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City on Sunday, October 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Amateur players take a break on a soccer field in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Cassandra Garduno walks in her floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Miguel Serralde and Cassandra Garduno plant in her floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Miguel Serralde works in Cassandra Garduno's floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Manuel Serralde works in a floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

New soccer fields can be seen where ancestral floating gardens once grew in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, on Sunday, October 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Amateur players take a break on a soccer field in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A man on a traditional canoe launches a soccer ball that fell into the lake in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Amateur soccer players from the Chivas team play on a field in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, on Sunday, October 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Amateur soccer players from the Tumbados team travel in a traditional canoe in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, on Sunday, October 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Amateur soccer players and families travel in a traditional canoe in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, on Sunday, October 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Floating gardens with Mexican marigold flowers known as cempasuchil grow in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Cassandra Garduno plants flowers in her floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Cassandra Garduno cuts Mexican marigold flowers known as cempasuchil she grew in her floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Cassandra Garduno works in her floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Cassandra Garduno poses for a portrait at her floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Small ancestral floating gardens are visible next to new soccer fields on the Xochimilco Lake in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Cassandra Garduno cuts Mexican marigold flowers known as cempasuchil she grew in her floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

LUANDA, Angola (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday ducked questions on his decision to break his word and pardon his son Hunter, ignoring calls for him to explain his reversal as he was making his first presidential trip to Angola.

Dismissing shouted questions with a laugh during a meeting with Angolan President João Lourenço at the presidential palace, Biden said to the Angolan delegation “welcome to America.” Biden was not scheduled to take questions from the press during his trip to Africa, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday, and he has largely avoided any interaction with reporters since President-elect Donald Trump’s victory last month.

Biden’s decision to offer his son a blanket pardon for actions over the past 11 years has sparked a political uproar in Washington, after the president repeatedly told the public he would not use his extraordinary powers for the benefit of his family members. And Biden claimed that his own Justice Department had presided over a “miscarriage of justice” in prosecuting his son.

The reversal drew criticism from many Democrats, who are working to calibrate their approach to Trump as he prepares to take over the Oval Office in seven weeks, as they fear the pardon — and Biden's claims that his son was prosecuted for political reasons — will erode their ability to push back on the incoming president’s legal moves. And it threatened to cloud Biden's legacy as he prepares to leave office on Jan. 20.

In June, Biden told reporters as his son faced trial in a Delaware gun case, “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”

In July, Jean-Pierre told reporters: “It’s still a no. It will be a no. It is a no. And I don’t have anything else to add. Will he pardon his son? No.”

In November, days after Trump’s victory, Jean-Pierre reiterated that message: “Our answer stands, which is no.”

Long and Miller reported from Washington.

President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden walk in downtown Nantucket Mass., Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

President Joe Biden meets with Angola's President Joao Lourenco, at the presidential palace in the capital Luanda, Angola on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)