For the second time in less than three years, Guadalajara’s urban agriculture community is mobilizing against proposed regulations they say criminalize planting in public space and threaten long-standing agroecological practices across the city.
A new Urban Agriculture law now advancing through local legislative channels has sparked opposition from collectives, gardeners and food-sovereignty advocates who argue that the proposal repeats — and deepens — the same problems that triggered public outcry in 2023: regulation without consultation, surveillance of community activity, and the framing of autonomous planting as a punishable act.
In July 2023, Guadalajara authorities moved to restrict planting in public spaces, leading to police interventions against urban gardening collectives. Members of the Huerto Rabia y Memoria collective were detained for planting corn in a public area, and police later disrupted a community planting event, actions that organizers interpreted as an attempt to intimidate and deter public agroecological activity.
In response, dozens of collectives and hundreds of individuals rallied under the banner #SembrarNoEsUnDelito (“Sowing Is Not a Crime”), issuing a public denunciation that framed planting as a collective right tied to food sovereignty, environmental care, and community self-organization — not a criminal offense.
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