Thinking Globally, Acting Locally In San Miguel: Tikkun Ecocenter

Published July 12, 2023

by Kim Malcolm

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico is a small city with a big heart. More than 100 charitable organizations support San Miguel’s local community, most with a focus on food, education or health. One of the most innovative is protecting and restoring the local environment in ways that support rural Mexican communities.

Twelve years ago, Ben Zion Ptashnik and Victoria Collier began to create an oasis of green just outside the city in the pueblo of San Jose de Gracia. The result, Tikkun Eco Center, is a model of “permaculture,” a system of farming and building that emphasizes harmony with the local environment. The off-grid Center has community gardens, thousands of new trees and cactus, plow horses, bee hives, solar panels and a wind generator, worm composting, and ponds of fish. Victoria describes how she struggled with grasshoppers in her organic garden for years and finally resolved the problem with a large flock of chickens that follow her through the yard as she knocks the bugs off of corn, kale and tomato plants.

The farm isn’t just a model. It’s an integral part of the local community 10 miles outside of San Miguel. When their neighbors lost their jobs during the pandemic, Victoria and Ben provided the farm’s abundance to 60 struggling families. They’re also working with local residents to help them grow their own home gardens. Perhaps most importantly, Ben and Victoria are restoring the traditional village rainwater reservoir system to provide desperately needed water to their local community and family farms.

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