Colleagues, as your Cooperative Senator deeply engaged in promoting inclusion and justice throughout AGATA’s cooperative ecosystem, I stand firmly in support of enshrining Accessibility as a core pillar — a vital step to ensure we design our time and labor systems so that Deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, low-bandwidth, and neurodiverse individuals are not only included but actively empowered in our regenerative work.
However, I want to elevate a critical complementary priority that has emerged powerfully through amendments and debate but has yet to be fully integrated: Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management.
From my microfinance and cooperative work with marginalized cohorts — especially migrant and undocumented workers who often bear the brunt of unseen ecological labor — I know that regenerating our soil and farm systems depends fundamentally on how we handle waste and nutrients on every temporal scale. This is not a peripheral or specialist concern; it is a daily labor reality that sustains resilience, regeneration, and the health of our neighbors alike.
Embedding full-cycle waste and nutrient management explicitly as a core pillar alongside Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, Education, and Accessibility ensures that our policies can robustly support practical closed-loop systems — that those who do the most intensive, often invisible, ecological labor are recognized and supported. It guards against past systemic failures where lack of integrated waste and nutrient cycles led to breakdowns in health, soil fertility, and community trust.
I urge this Senate to not see Accessibility and Ecological Stewardship as separate silos but as deeply intersecting imperatives. True accessibility means safe, healthy environments; and true stewardship means honoring the labor that makes that possible.
I call on my colleagues to embrace a holistic charter that steadfastly integrates Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management as a foundational pillar. This is essential for AGATA’s longevity, our cooperative values, and our commitments to equity and justice.
Thank you.