written by Hope Bigda-Peyton and Douglas Gayeton
photography and video by Douglas Gayeton
Written by Hope Bigda-Peyton and Douglas GayetonPhotography and video by Douglas Gayeton
WALKING THROUGH THE BUSTLING Villa de Etla market at noontime, in a dusty village on the outskirts of Oaxaca, Irma Rosales shrewdly picks out the ingredients for her family’s favorite sopa de guias. “Where did you grow these guias?” she asks a woman selling squash vines and flowers from a blanket on the floor. Satisfied with the vendor’s answer, she scoops the vines into her arms, dividing them up for her daughters Hazly and Diana to carry. “You always have to ask,” she remarks. “Lots of food, even at my community market, is from other places and is grown using agrochemicals. But I try to buy agro-ecologically produced local foods. It’s made all the difference for my daughters, myself, and my community.”
Today, Oaxacans spend nearly 40% of their monthly disposable income on food, most of which is ultra-processed. Redirecting that spending towards healthier, local, and sustainably-grown foods is key to addressing Mexico’s nutrition challenges. Increasingly, it includes one particular ingredient native to the region that nearly vanished from local markets: amaranth.
AMARANTH WAS FIRST CULTIVATED IN MEXICO over 7,000 years ago. High in protein and rich in essential minerals, the grain was once considered, along with corn and beans, a staple food across Central America. Amaranth also played a vital role in Aztec (or Mexica) religious practices. Each year, farmers across Mexico sent nearly 20,000 tons of the grain to Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) in annual tribute to the Aztec emperor Montezuma.
Amaranth was so closely tied to Aztec religious rites that Aztec people ground the seed— with corn and honey—to create a dough called tzoalli, which was then shaped into the forms of gods, mountains, deer, snakes, and birds. These figures were eaten during ceremonies at the great temples—with blood splattered onto the sculptures to magnify their importance—or shared at family gatherings. The widespread use of rituals involving amaranth shocked the Spanish conquistadors; they eventually forbade its cultivation, burned fields, and cut off the hands of farmers to discourage its future use.
In the intervening centuries, corn and beans became two of the world’s leading crops, while amaranth faded into obscurity and was largely forgotten across the Americas. Because amaranth was once so important to Aztec and other pre-colonization diets, it is a promising forgotten food. Moreover, amaranth cultivation can improve nutritional outcomes especially since most of the world now receives the bulk of its calories and protein from a mere three crop species—corn, wheat, and rice.
Before colonization, amaranth—along with corn, beans, and other crops—were key elements of the milpa, a nutritious group of plants that have a symbiotic growing relationship, making them ideal for human health and sustainable agriculture. In recent times, Mexicans have turned away from their milpa-based diet, a shift accelerated by NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), which flooded Mexican markets with inexpensive, processed food products that increasingly displaced traditional foods. In rural communities, a new dependence on processed foods is a principal cause of both malnutrition and obesity; in 1980, 7% of Mexicans were obese, but by 2016 that figure tripled to over 20%. Today, obesity is the number one cause of death in Mexico.
Puente a la Salud Comunitaria, an NGO focused on improving nutrition in rural Oaxaca, offers communities a number of programs.Its cooking workshops teach marginalized farmer families nutrition education and methods for using amaranth. The versatile plant’s seeds have a richer nutrient profile than comparable cereals like wheat, rice, and corn. Its leaves, a great source of iron and other micronutrients, are available for consumption throughout the plant’s life cycle. Irma Rosales took what she learned from the workshops and integrated whole foods into her family’s diet—she now uses amaranth in guisados, soups, beverages, and sweets.
Through Puente’s cooking workshops, Irma met other women in her community seeking to improve their families’ diets. One friend,María Cristina, uses her newfound knowledge to regularly prepare healthy amaranth-themed meals for her grandchildren, Dafne Nicol and Leandro Sebastián. “In rural areas, there is a lack of dietary diversity which results in malnutrition amongst girls and boys,” Maria notes. “Amaranth offers a great deal of diversity and is easy to incorporate into our meals at a low cost.” By increasing healthy whole foods like ancient grains in their diets, Oaxacan families improve their nutrition and wellbeing.
Amaranth is a pseudo-cereal similar in nutritional make-up to its cousin plant quinoa. It boasts a richer nutrient profile than comparable cereals like wheat, rice, and corn. Families prepare amaranth in any number of ways:
MESOAMERIC’S AGRICULTURAL LEGACY begins with corn. The oldest seeds were found in Tlacolula, Oaxaca; one of agronomy’s great mysteries is how centuries of intentional plant breeding here led to the domestication of corn from the tiny teocintle. Incredible human innovations like these changed the face of history—without seed sharing and saving, this biodiversity could have been lost in a single generation.
Minerva Cruz always wanted to be a farmer. She has a deep appreciation for the land she was raised on, but when she started out, Minerva used chemical inputs including fertilizers and synthetic pesticides like many of her neighbors. It wasn’t until she noticed that she had to buy increasing amounts of chemicals each season to ensure the same level of productivity that she decided to explore other farming practices.
Like many farmers in this region, Minerva has turned to the past to learn about the agricultural methods used by her ancestors—from seed saving and sharing to agroecological practices. When Minerva and her neighbors implemented these techniques, other regions of Oaxaca took notice.
The Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca has a particularly dry and arid climate, rendering agriculture a risky and difficult endeavor. Manuel Villegas Mora had long thought that if farmers found a way to preserve and enhance their delicate soils without synthetic fertilizers, they could increase productivity and improve family livelihoods.
For Manuel, building biodiversity began with building healthy soil; he now teaches young farmers to cultivate thriving ecosystems by breaking their reliance on synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They’re learning a time-intensive process to ferment locally available organic matter then apply it directly on the soil. Manuel acknowledges that the process of recuperating their farmlands and replenishing the soil with biodiverse microorganisms may take years.
Farming in rural Mexico has never been a high-income profession, but access to appropriate technologies, ranging from seeding to threshing and cleaning machines, can save labor, help share knowledge, and dramatically increase the profitability of small-scale agriculture. Through access to appropriate technologies, farmers like Minerva and Manuel are able to earn a living wage and attain viable livelihoods from their farms.
Another form of knowledge sharing is through community radio. XETLA radio programs are broadcast in Mixteco and Español and available throughout the Oaxacan countryside. “Fuerza del campesino,” a daily radio program, features interviews with specialists who discuss community-based agricultural activities, while another show, “Colores y Sabores del Campo” (Colors and Tastes of the Countryside) broadcasts interviews with nutritionists and medical experts who share the food culture of indigenous populations. Finally, “La Hora Mixteca” (the Mixtec Hour) collaborates with Radio Bilingual (a show based out of Fresno, California) to offer a mix of music and current event programming. The station provides an important outlet to share knowledge on a local level, and remains one of the most important sources of communication and news in rural Mexico.
IN INDIGENOUS MOUNTAIN TOWNS like San Cristobal Amoltepec, located in Oaxaca’s Alta Mixteca region, wage-paying jobs are scarce. Amoltepec women like Alma Ortiz can earn 50 pesos, or just over $2 USD per day, weaving straw hats, while many others find work as house cleaners or store attendants. Both types of work require travel, which separates women from their young children and families, and can be quite expensive and difficult given road conditions and the lack of transport options.
With Puente’s help, Alma created a social enterprise that brings together local women. They develop a number of value-added products with amaranth, which they sell in neighboring villages. By working together, community entrepreneurs both increase their own access to healthy foods while also earning sufficient income to support their families. The opportunity to work in the same community where they live eliminates travel expenses and increases the quality of life for marginalized families.
To share knowledge and provide access to technology in their communities, female entrepreneurs also form volunteer-operated cooperatives. Grassroots networks across Oaxaca like the Red de Consumo (Healthy Food Network) are made up of farmers, microenterprise groups, and consumers. The networks have helped strengthen the amaranth value chain and increase local organization around healthy food systems by increasing accessibility to affordable, healthy food at a community level. Cooperative members see their labor as a service to the community at large. Collective social entrepreneurship, which operates through volunteer collaboration, reinforces community fabric and forges new social ties.
OAXACAN COMMUNITIES ARE DEFINED BY a highly formal cooperative model called Usos y Costumbres, a system based on public participation, volunteerism and community-led decision making. It’s an indigenous governance structure steeped in traditions and customs, with community members working together to make collective decisions through asambleas (town meetings) to implement community improvement projects through shared labor practices like tequio and gueza. In this tequio, Miguel and his neighbors volunteer to reforest and restore their community watershed.
A unique form of indigenous celebration and reciprocity in Oaxaca is guelaguetza — the idea of giving to one’s community as a form of celebration, without hoping to receive anything in return.
Today, the Guelaguetza is an annual event featuring indigenous dancing from Oaxaca’s seven regions, but the origins of guelaguetza extend back to pre-Columbian times, with agricultural celebrations of corn, amaranth and other crops and to pay tribute to earth gods.
By reclaiming indigenous crops like amaranth and traditional forms of agriculture, rural communities reaffirm their identity and sovereignty. Amaranth provides Oaxacan communities with the opportunity to celebrate and elevate their culture, together.
by Katelyn Mann of The Lexicon
edited by Raúl Hernández Garciadiego of Alternativas and Quali
Amaranth is a herbaceous plant growing 4 to 9 feet (1.2-3 m) tall. The plant is cultivated in temperate regions as an annual and used either as an ornamental plant or as a food source. The long stems alternate simple leaves and end in a colorful spear of radially symmetric spiky flowers (panicle inflorescence) that hide thousands (up to 60,000 seeds) of tiny amaranth grains. Amaranth is part of the plant family Amaranthaceae, which also features quinoa, beets and spinach. There are 60 different species of amaranth.
The seeds and leaves of the Amaranth plant are commonly eaten. The tiny seeds have a flavor similar to quinoa. Amaranth is easy to cook, simply needing to boil in twice the volume of water to grain for 15-20 minutes. Amaranth is boiled into porridge or sweet beverages and ground into flour and baked into desserts. The seed is also popped, mixed with sweeteners such as agave syrup or honey, and formed into balls or bars for a high protein snack. In Mexico the leaves (called “quelites,” a blanket term for edible green leaves) are utilized similarly to spinach, cooked into dishes and served sauteed as a side. The leaves are also commonplace in many Asian and African cuisines.
The amaranth grain is naturally gluten free and close to a complete protein with 10 essential amino acids including lysine, which most other grains lack. A serving of grain amaranth contains upwards of 20% of the recommended daily value of protein, fiber, vitamin B6 and several other minerals. Amaranth leaves, when cooked, contain high amounts of vitamin C, vitamin A, calcium and manganese and notable amounts of iron and potassium.
Amaranth grows best in hot, tropical environments but can grow in temperate regions without frost. Amaranth is comparatively drought resistant, making it a valuable crop in times of erratic climatic change and water scarcity. With its tiny grains, a small amount of amaranth by weight can plant a large area, making it a cost-effective crop for small farmers. Compared to the number of seeds used for planting, amaranth produces a high yield with large seed heads and up to 60,000 grains per stalk. The grain is harvested an average of 90-180 days after planting, depending on the variety and season’s weather. Amaranth leaves are picked carefully to avoid slowing down the maturation of the grain. Amaranth is often grown in field rotation with beans and corn to prevent soil degradation.
Amaranth seeds are difficult to thresh and clean. The seeds are wrapped in a cuticle topped off with tiny sharp spines, painful for those who handle the unthreshed grain. Machines to thresh and clean amaranth grains are hard to come by and expensive, especially for small scale producers. This is perhaps the greatest technical difficulty present in preventing the expansion of amaranth cultivation- the lack of appropriate and accessible processing technology.
Amaranth is native to Mexico and Central America and has been a traditional staple of the region for centuries. The cultural roots of amaranth go back to 6500 BCE. The domestication of amaranth, corn, beans, chile and other crops in the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley region by the ancestors of the current Popolocas marked the beginning of Mesoamerican agriculture. People of the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley region were incredibly skilled agrarians who not only began the cultivation of many important crops, but also developed irrigation runoff control technology, as seen in the Purrón Dam Complex.
The Aztecs, who migrated to the Valley of Mexico in 1325 after the domestication of amaranth, reportedly received 80% of their caloric consumption from amaranth prior to Spanish conquest and the consequential introduction of rice and wheat to the Americas. Colonization by the Spanish meant the suppression or replacement of many traditional cultural, religious, and agricultural practices.
Indigenous peoples preserved the cultivation of amaranth in Mexico, particularly in regions surrounding the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (chain of volcanoes that runs east-west across central-southern Mexico) such as the states of Puebla, Tlaxcala, Mexico City, Oaxaca, Morelos and more recently, Querétaro and San Luis Potosí.
Amaranth production was revived in the 1980s as the negative effects of foriegn-dominated maize monoculture agriculture were coming to light, largely thanks to the work of research Alfredo Sánchez Marroquín and his 1980 book “Potencial Agroindustrial del Amaranto” (The Agroindustrial Potential of Amaranth) which awakened the interest of institutions and nonprofits to rescue and promote amaranth. By 1982, organizations such as Alternativas were already embarking on experimental amaranth plantings. Indigenous traditions, such as amaranth production and consumption, grew in popularity and gained respect as answers for social and environmental ills such as malnutrition and environmental degradation. Amaranth varieties such as A. hypochondriacus were recovered from wild varieties and non profit seed collectors. Amaranth continues to grow in popularity worldwide as a nutritious, easy to grow crop that is adaptable to climatic difficulties such as drought.
The Mexican government began research into amaranth’s potential in the 1980s, with Alfredo Sánchez Marroquín’s research for the Center for Economic and Social Studies for the Third World (CEESTEM) and investigations by national institutes and universities. Around the same time, civil organizations promoted amaranth cultivation and development in Puebla (Alternativas/Cedetac) and Hidalgo (Utopía Huixcazdhá). In 1995, the nonprofit Alternativas published the Seeding Guide for Intensive Cultivation of Amaranth in Semi-Arid Zones, which was recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Development Program for its technological accomplishments. Mexican community organizations and nonprofits such as Puente a La Salud Comunitaria in Oaxaca and Alternativas in the Tehuacán Valley continue to promote amaranth production as a tool for community health and economic and social development for smallholder producers. Amaranth is being researched as a promising crop for areas with high soil salinity.
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We have no idea who grows our food, what farming practices they use, the communities they support, or what processing it undergoes before reaching our plates.
As a result, we have no ability to make food purchases that align with our values as individuals, or our missions as companies.
To change that, we’ve asked experts to demystify the complexity of food purchasing so that you can better informed decisions about what you buy.
The Lexicon of Food’s community of experts share their insights and experiences on the complex journey food takes to reach our plates. Their work underscores the need for greater transparency and better informed decision-making in shaping a healthier and more sustainable food system for all.
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This online platform is years in the making, featuring the contributions of 1000+ companies and NGOs across a dzen domain areas. To introduce you to their work, we’ve assembled personalized experiences with insights from our community of international experts.
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Over half the world’s agricultural production comes from only three crops. Can we bring greater diversity to our plates?
In the US, four companies control nearly 85% of the beef we consume. Can we develop more regionally-based markets?
How can we develop alternatives to single-use plastics that are more sustainable and environmentally friendly?
Could changing the way we grow our food provide benefits for people and the planet, and even respond to climate change?
Can we meet the growing global demand for protein while reducing our reliance on traditional animal agriculture?
It’s not only important what we eat but what our food comes in. Can we develop tools that identify toxic materials used in food packaging?
Explore The Lexicon’s collection of immersive storytelling experiences featuring insights from our community of international experts.
The Great Protein Shift
Our experts use an engaging interactive approach to break down the technologies used to create these novel proteins.
Ten Principles for Regenerative Agriculture
What is regenerative agriculture? We’ve developed a framework to explain the principles, practices, ecological benefits and language of regenerative agriculture, then connected them to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Food-related chronic diseases are the biggest burden on healthcare systems. What would happen if we treated food as medicine?
How can we responsibly manage our ocean fisheries so there’s enough seafood for everyone now and for generations to come?
Mobilizing agronomists, farmers, NGOs, chefs, and food companies in defense of biodiversity in nature, agriculture, and on our plates.
Can governments develop guidelines that shift consumer diets, promote balanced nutrition and reduce the risk of chronic disease?
Will sustainably raising shellfish, finfish, shrimp and algae meet the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressure on wild fisheries?
How can a universal visual language to describe our food systems bridge cultural barriers and increase consumer literacy?
What if making the right food choices could be an effective tool for addressing a range of global challenges?
Let’s start with climate change. While it presents our planet with existential challenges, biodiversity loss, desertification, and water scarcity should be of equal concern—they’re all connected.
Instead of seeking singular solutions, we must develop a holistic approach, one that channel our collective energies and achieve positive impacts where they matter most.
To maximize our collective impact, EBF can help consumers focus on six equally important ecological benefits: air, water, soil, biodiversity, equity, and carbon.
We’ve gathered domain experts from over 1,000 companies and organizations working at the intersection of food, agriculture, conservation, and climate change.
The Lexicon™ is a California-based nonprofit founded in 2009 with a focus on positive solutions for a more sustainable planet.
For the past five years, it has developed an “activator for good ideas” with support from Food at Google. This model gathers domain experts from over 1,000 companies and organizations working at the intersection of food, agriculture, conservation, and climate change.
Together, the community has reached consensus on strategies that respond to challenges across multiple domain areas, including biodiversity, regenerative agriculture, food packaging, aquaculture, and the missing middle in supply chains for meat.
Lexicon of Food is the first public release of that work.
Over half the world’s agricultural production comes from only three crops. Can we bring greater diversity to our plates?
In the US, four companies control nearly 85% of the beef we consume. Can we develop more regionally-based markets?
How can we develop alternatives to single-use plastics that are more sustainable and environmentally friendly?
Could changing the way we grow our food provide benefits for people and the planet, and even respond to climate change?
Can we meet the growing global demand for protein while reducing our reliance on traditional animal agriculture?
It’s not only important what we eat but what our food comes in. Can we develop tools that identify toxic materials used in food packaging?
Explore The Lexicon’s collection of immersive storytelling experiences featuring insights from our community of international experts.
The Great Protein Shift
Our experts use an engaging interactive approach to break down the technologies used to create these novel proteins.
Ten Principles for Regenerative Agriculture
What is regenerative agriculture? We’ve developed a framework to explain the principles, practices, ecological benefits and language of regenerative agriculture, then connected them to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Food-related chronic diseases are the biggest burden on healthcare systems. What would happen if we treated food as medicine?
How can we responsibly manage our ocean fisheries so there’s enough seafood for everyone now and for generations to come?
Mobilizing agronomists, farmers, NGOs, chefs, and food companies in defense of biodiversity in nature, agriculture, and on our plates.
Can governments develop guidelines that shift consumer diets, promote balanced nutrition and reduce the risk of chronic disease?
Will sustainably raising shellfish, finfish, shrimp and algae meet the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressure on wild fisheries?
How can a universal visual language to describe our food systems bridge cultural barriers and increase consumer literacy?
This game was designed to raise awareness about the impacts our food choices have on our own health, but also the environment, climate change and the cultures in which we live.
First, you can choose one of the four global regions and pick a character that you want to play.
Each region has distinct cultural, economic, historical, and agricultural capacities to feed itself, and each character faces different challenges, such as varied access to food, higher or lower family income, and food literacy.
As you take your character through their day, select the choices you think they might make given their situation.
At the end of the day you will get a report on the impact of your food choices on five areas: health, healthcare, climate, environment and culture. Take some time to read through them. Now go back and try again. Can you make improvements in all five areas? Did one area score higher, but another score lower?
FOOD CHOICES FOR A HEALTHY PLANET will help you better understand how all these regions and characters’ particularities can influence our food choices, and how our food choices can impact our personal health, national healthcare, environment, climate, and culture. Let’s Play!
The FOOD CHOICES FOR A HEALTHY PLANET game allows users to experience the dramatic connections between food and climate in a unique and engaging way. The venue and the game set-up provides attendees with a fun experience, with a potential to add a new layer of storytelling about this topic.
Starting the game: the pilot version of the game features four country/regions: Each reflects a different way people (and the national dietary guidelines) look at diets: Nordic Countries (sustainability), Brazil (local and whole foods instead of ultra-processed foods); Canada (plant-forward), and Indonesia (developing countries).
Personalizing the game: players begin by choosing a country and then a character who they help in making food choices over the course of one day. Later versions may allow for creating custom avatars.
Making tough food choices: This interactive game for all ages shows how the food choices we make impact our health and the environment, and even contribute to climate change.
What we eat matters: at the end of each game, players learn that every decision they make impacts not only their health, but a national healthcare system, the environment, climate and even culture.
We’d love to know more about you and why you think you will be a great fit for this position! Shoot us an email introducing you and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!
Providing best water quality conditions to ensure optimal living condition for growth, breeding and other physiological needs
Water quality is sourced from natural seawater with dependency on the tidal system. Water is treated to adjust pH and alkalinity before stocking.
Producers that own and manages the farm operating under small-scale farming model with limited input, investment which leads to low to medium production yield
All 1,149 of our farmers in both regencies are smallholder farmers who operate with low stocking density, traditional ponds, and no use of any other intensification technology.
Safe working conditions — cleanliness, lighting, equipment, paid overtime, hazard safety, etc. — happen when businesses conduct workplace safety audits and invest in the wellbeing of their employees
Company ensure implementation of safe working conditions by applying representative of workers to health and safety and conduct regular health and safety training. The practices are proven by ASIC standards’ implementation
Implementation of farming operations, management and trading that impact positively to community wellbeing and sustainable better way of living
The company works with local stakeholders and local governments to create support for farmers and the farming community in increasing resilience. Our farming community is empowered by local stakeholders continuously to maintain a long generation of farmers.
Freezing seafood rapidly when it is at peak freshness to ensure a higher quality and longer lasting product
Our harvests are immediately frozen with ice flakes in layers in cool boxes. Boxes are equipped with paper records and coding for traceability. We ensure that our harvests are processed with the utmost care at <-18 degrees Celsius.
Sourcing plant based ingredients, like soy, from producers that do not destroy forests to increase their growing area and produce fish feed ingredients
With adjacent locations to mangroves and coastal areas, our farmers and company are committed to no deforestation at any scale. Mangrove rehabilitation and replantation are conducted every year in collaboration with local authorities. Our farms are not established in protected habitats and have not resulted from deforestation activity since the beginning of our establishment.
Implement only natural feeds grown in water for aquatic animal’s feed without use of commercial feed
Our black tiger shrimps are not fed using commercial feed. The system is zero input and depends fully on natural feed grown in the pond. Our farmers use organic fertilizer and probiotics to enhance the water quality.
Enhance biodiversity through integration of nature conservation and food production without negative impact to surrounding ecosysytem
As our practices are natural, organic, and zero input, farms coexist with surrounding biodiversity which increases the volume of polyculture and mangrove coverage area. Farmers’ groups, along with the company, conduct regular benthic assessments, river cleaning, and mangrove planting.
THE TERM “MOONSHOT” IS OFTEN USED TO DESCRIBE an initiative that goes beyond the confines of the present by transforming our greatest aspirations into reality, but the story of a moonshot isn’t that of a single rocket. In fact, the Apollo program that put Neil Armstrong on the moon was actually preceded by the Gemini program, which in a two-year span rapidly put ten rockets into space. This “accelerated” process — with a new mission nearly every 2-3 months — allowed NASA to rapidly iterate, validate their findings and learn from their mistakes. Telemetry. Propulsion. Re-entry. Each mission helped NASA build and test a new piece of the puzzle.
The program also had its fair share of creative challenges, especially at the outset, as the urgency of the task at hand required that the roadmap for getting to the moon be written in parallel with the rapid pace of Gemini missions. Through it all, the NASA teams never lost sight of their ultimate goal, and the teams finally aligned on their shared responsibilities. Within three years of Gemini’s conclusion, a man did walk on the moon.
FACT is a food systems solutions activator that assesses the current food landscape, engages with key influencers, identifies trends, surveys innovative work and creates greater visibility for ideas and practices with the potential to shift key food and agricultural paradigms.
Each activator focuses on a single moonshot; instead of producing white papers, policy briefs or peer-reviewed articles, these teams design and implement blueprints for action. At the end of each activator, their work is released to the public and open-sourced.
As with any rapid iteration process, many of our activators re-assess their initial plans and pivot to address new challenges along the way. Still, one thing has remained constant: their conviction that by working together and pooling their knowledge and resources, they can create a multiplier effect to more rapidly activate change.
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Who can enter and how selections are made.
A Greener Blue is a global call to action that is open to individuals and teams from all over the world. Below is a non-exhaustive list of subjects the initiative targets.
To apply, prospective participants will need to fill out the form on the website, by filling out each part of it. Applications left incomplete or containing information that is not complete enough will receive a low score and have less chance of being admitted to the storytelling lab.
Nonprofit organizations, communities of fishers and fish farmers and companies that are seeking a closer partnership or special support can also apply by contacting hello@thelexicon.org and interacting with the members of our team.
Special attention will be given to the section of the form regarding the stories that the applicants want to tell and the reasons for participating. All proposals for stories regarding small-scale or artisanal fishers or aquaculturists, communities of artisanal fishers or aquaculturists, and workers in different steps of the seafood value chain will be considered.
Stories should show the important role that these figures play in building a more sustainable seafood system. To help with this narrative, the initiative has identified 10 principles that define a more sustainable seafood system. These can be viewed on the initiative’s website and they state:
Seafood is sustainable when:
Proposed stories should show one or more of these principles in practice.
Applications are open from the 28th of June to the 15th of August 2022. There will be 50 selected applicants who will be granted access to The Lexicon’s Total Storytelling Lab. These 50 applicants will be asked to accept and sign a learning agreement and acceptance of participation document with which they agree to respect The Lexicon’s code of conduct.
The first part of the lab will take place online between August the 22nd and August the 26th and focus on training participants on the foundation of storytelling, supporting them to create a production plan, and aligning all of them around a shared vision.
Based on their motivation, quality of the story, geography, and participation in the online Lab, a selected group of participants will be gifted a GoPro camera offered to the program by GoPro For A Change. Participants who are selected to receive the GoPro camera will need to sign an acceptance and usage agreement.
The second part of the Storytelling Lab will consist of a production period in which each participant will be supported in the production of their own story. This period goes from August 26th to October 13th. Each participant will have the opportunity to access special mentorship from an international network of storytellers and seafood experts who will help them build their story. The Lexicon also provides editors, animators, and graphic designers to support participants with more technical skills.
The final deadline to submit the stories is the 14th of October. Participants will be able to both submit complete edited stories, or footage accompanied by a storyboard to be assembled by The Lexicon’s team.
All applicants who will exhibit conduct and behavior that is contrary to The Lexicon’s code of conduct will be automatically disqualified. This includes applicants proposing stories that openly discriminate against a social or ethnic group, advocate for a political group, incite violence against any group, or incite to commit crimes of any kind.
All submissions must be the entrant’s original work. Submissions must not infringe upon the trademark, copyright, moral rights, intellectual rights, or rights of privacy of any entity or person.
Participants will retain the copyrights to their work while also granting access to The Lexicon and the other partners of the initiative to share their contributions as part of A Greener Blue Global Storytelling Initiative.
If a potential selected applicant cannot be reached by the team of the Initiative within three (3) working days, using the contact information provided at the time of entry, or if the communication is returned as undeliverable, that potential participant shall forfeit.
Selected applicants will be granted access to an advanced Storytelling Lab taught and facilitated by Douglas Gayeton, award-winning storyteller and information architect, co-founder of The Lexicon. In this course, participants will learn new techniques that will improve their storytelling skills and be able to better communicate their work with a global audience. This skill includes (but is not limited to) how to build a production plan for a documentary, how to find and interact with subjects, and how to shoot a short documentary.
Twenty of the participants will receive a GoPro Hero 11 Digital Video and Audio Cameras by September 15, 2022. Additional participants may receive GoPro Digital Video and Audio Cameras to be announced at a later date. The recipients will be selected by advisors to the program and will be based on selection criteria (see below) on proposals by Storytelling Lab participants. The selections will keep in accordance with Lab criteria concerning geography, active participation in the Storytelling Lab and commitment to the creation of a story for the Initiative, a GoPro Camera to use to complete the storytelling lab and document their story. These recipients will be asked to sign an acceptance letter with terms of use and condition to receive the camera.
The Lexicon provides video editors, graphic designers, and animators to support the participants to complete their stories.
The submitted stories will be showcased during international and local events, starting from the closing event of the International Year of Fisheries and Aquaculture 2022 in Rome, in January 2023. The authors of the stories will be credited and may be invited to join.
Storytelling lab participation:
Applicants that will be granted access to the storytelling Lab will be evaluated based on the entries they provided in the online form, and in particular:
Applications will be evaluated by a team of 4 judges from The Lexicon, GSSI and the team of IYAFA (Selection committee).
When selecting applications, the call promoters may request additional documentation or interviews both for the purpose of verifying compliance with eligibility requirements and to facilitate proposal evaluation.
Camera recipients:
Participants to the Storytelling Lab who will be given a GoPro camera will be selected based on:
The evaluation will be carried out by a team of 4 judges from The Lexicon, GSSI and the team of IYAFA (Selection committee).
Incidental expenses and all other costs and expenses which are not specifically listed in these Official Rules but which may be associated with the acceptance, receipt and use of the Storytelling Lab and the camera are solely the responsibility of the respective participants and are not covered by The Lexicon or any of the A Greener Blue partners.
All participants who receive a Camera are required to sign an agreement allowing GoPro for a Cause, The Lexicon and GSSI to utilize the films for A Greener Blue and their promotional purposes. All participants will be required to an agreement to upload their footage into the shared drive of The Lexicon and make the stories, films and images available for The Lexicon and the promoting partners of A Greener Blue.
