Dr. Malaquías Q. Flores of the Benson Institute combined
their efforts to form what would later be
known as the manual. In 1997, Dr. Flores, Lilia
Fraire, and her students initiated a program entitled
“Backyard Gardening” (Huertos de Traspatio) for the
residents of the state of Tabasco. The program
encompassed agronomic production, the socioeconomic
position of the community, and the applicable
aspects of nutrition. Through “Backyard
Gardening,” the integration of methods to restore
and conserve natural resources was observed to be of
paramount importance for present families and
future generations. The concern was that as farmers
worked their land, the overall product quality was
declining. This was primarily due to inadequate cultivation
procedures that were inappropriate for the
unique conditions. Therefore, a need arose to educate
farmers in the area on how to successfully integrate
organic methods into their current agricultural
practices to recover useful organic components. Thus
The Technical Manual of Sustainable Organic
Agriculture was proposed to provide farmers with a
means to produce sufficient yields without compromising
the conditions in which future generations
would have to provide for their respective families.
The manual is a combined source of material published
by diverse authors and research projects developed
by Fraire after many years of work in Mexico
and Central America. What makes the manual
unique is its completeness and its structure that is
designed to facilitate a means of learning and adopting
the methods that would otherwise be inaccessible

to the average farmer. This data, along with
information from various resources including books,
technical manuals, pamphlets, scientific manuals,
findings from professional residencies, from committees,
symposiums, theses, the World Wide Web,
and technical videos covering organic agriculture,
was organized by two of Fraire’s students—Marco
Aurelio Cabrera and Natanael Contreras. Cabrera
and Contreras were selected from a group of Fraire’s
students to travel to the Benson Institute and work
with Flores in compiling all of the available data that
dealt with organic agriculture. The time spent producing
the manual satisfied Cabrera and Contreras’
internship requirements for graduation from the
Institute of Agricultural Technology #28, where they
are students in agronomy.

HOW IT IS ORGANIZED

The manual is organized into seven chapters,
each containing pertinent topics and subtopics. The
first chapter includes a review of what organic agriculture
has been in the world up to this point in
history. Chapters that follow explain methods of
organic farming proven to be successful in other
areas of the world. One chapter focuses on how to
raise earthworms to compost waste material into
humus for use as a natural fertilizer. This chapter discusses
the additional income that can be earned by
selling earthworms to other farmers as a composting
medium, a processed flour used to enrich animal
feed, and as bait. Another chapter shows the use of
animal waste as a source of natural fertilizer. Divided

into three parts, a third chapter discusses insects
and diseases. The first part includes information
about managing a harvest using crop rotations,
simultaneous farming of different crops, disease and
pest-resistant varieties, and other viable cultural practices.
The second part deals with biological pest control
through the use of pathogens, parasites, and
predators to regulate crop-damaging pests beneath
a permissible economic threshold. The third part
addresses the use and preparation of organic pesticides
using extracts from plants. Included are recipes
that can be produced at home and detailed instructions
on how some of the pesticides should be
applied. A fifth chapter includes the business side of
crop cultivation including production, management,
processing, transportation, storage, and commercialization.
The final chapter of the manual explains the
certification process: what conditions are required
for the certification process and how to enact the
conversion process from original farming techniques
to the organic farming system. This is to grant the
farmer entrance into the otherwise exclusive organic
produce market. Also explained is how to deal with
any legal situation that the farmer will encounter in
the conversion process. Illustrations created by
employees of the Benson Institute have been
included to add a visual confirmation to further the
reader’s comprehension of the above-mentioned text
contained in the manual.

CONCLUSION AND FORESEEABLE IMPACT
The manual will facilitate opportunities for
future internships for students earning their degrees
to fulfill their respective internship requirements for

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graduation in their programs. Also, future research
projects for graduate students will use the manual as
a foundation and as a text from which interested
farmers will be taught. The manual is designed to be
understandable and flexible enough so that students
who will train farmers in the subject matter will be
able to adapt to local dialects and enable those being
taught to reach a higher level of comprehension.
As the population for areas such as Mexico
increases exponentially each year, the producers
are continually challenged to meet the demands of
hunger and do so in a manner that will be economically
sustaining to themselves and their family. The
lack of training in technical/professional techniques,
funding, and programs to support the needs of the
people is a contributing cause to this challenge. The
information in The Technical Manual of Organic
Agriculture intends to impart useful information that
will make the land more productive, resulting in the
economic development of rural areas.
In the future, the manual will help to establish
organic agriculture and help to disperse the valuable
information to the needy farmers of the world.

WORKS CITED:

Alteri, M.A., P. Rosset, and L.A. Thrupp. 1998.
The Potential of Agroecology to Combat
World Hunger in the Developing World.
http://www.ifpri.org

World Bank. 1993. Natural Resource Management in
Bolivia. Operations Evaluation Department.
Available: http://www.worldbank.org