Draft legislation to foster the development of a solidarity economy is under study in two Mexican states and could promote more environmentally friendly food production, its supporters say. In the western state of Michoacán and the northern state of Chihuahua, draft laws that could be passed this year by their respective state legislatures would promote alternatives like local and family farming and bartering and exchange systems. Countries like the Dominican Republic and Ecuador have already adopted similar legal frameworks.

“These laws would foster other kinds of production and distribution models,” including ecological farming methods, activist Altagracia Villareal of the Espacio Economía Solidaria México, founded in 2003, told Tierramérica.