Moon and Stars at Black Lives Matter House, 53 Park St. South Royalton, VT
www.moonandstarsvt.org
Art by Misoo Bang
Products: Moon and Stars arepas, made from regeneratively grown corn
Where to buy: Upper Valley Food Co-op, South Royalton Market, Free Verse Farm Shop, Littleton Co-op, Cedar Circle Farm, and other farm stands. Retail location opening soon in South Royalton.
South Royalton, VT
Nine thousand years ago corn did not exist. The Indigenous peoples of modern day Mexico used wisdom and experimentation to domesticate a wild grass called teosinte into a crop. For the next thousands of years, people all over Central and South America developed corn into its modern form. This resulted in thousands of varieties. Today, we count on one hand the number of corn varieties we eat. And the industrial way this corn is grown damages both people and the planet.
Nando Jaramillo of Moon and Stars is connecting community, traditional food, and regenerative farming through heirloom corn and arepas.
Corn production has changed significantly over the course of Nando’s lifetime. He grew up in a region of Colombia that produces a lot of corn, and he fell in love with arepas as a kid. “I saw the change with the industrialization of the Free Trade Agreement and all this corn started flooding Colombia. And so you started seeing all this change in the way people make things and they adopted that because it was cheaper for them. They stopped growing their own corn. I feel like that was really detrimental to our culture.”
Nando works around the world to revitalize traditional corn varieties through regenerative agriculture and local products. “Growing corn in an ethical manner, creating all these base products, bringing them back to the roots — for resilience it is very important. We need to create a system that will bring equity to people on the farms and people in the food industry. And corn is so important because for all these cultures, that’s their main source of food.”
Integrating past and present is possible for everyone. Climate change is forcing farmers to grow new crop varieties, and instead of looking to the future for solutions, farmers can turn to the past. “I feel like we have to adapt to what we grow here,” he said. “Corn is very adaptable. I’ve been growing this strain … it’s called zapalote chico and it was one of the first strains of corn in the Oaxaca area [in Mexico]. It tastes so different that you want to eat it, you know?” If you try one of Nando’s arepas, you know.
“My vision is to create a food system that will bring all this ancient cultural food back to the roots and create a system that will bring all this quality of life to the farmers.”