Author Archives: Petra Derkzen

Porto Alegre’s 22 year old farmers’ market

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On the saturday of my arrival in Porto Alegre, the “Feira dos Agricultores Ecologistas” was celebrating its twenty-second birthday. The market is situated at the border of the big Parque Farroupilha Redenção in the city centre and is at least a kilometer long. Back then, the market started with a group of citizens in Porto Alegre in search for healthier food both for the environment and for human health. The environment was not something which was considered a ‘political’ issue at the time of the ‘dictatura’. The environment therefore, was a topic for groups to come together and of course, discuss politics more broadly. More than twenty years ago, an environmentalist consumer cooperative  was established which organised a wide network of farmers willing to produce differently which was back then, more of an activist- against mainstream – thing to do than today. The farmers called themselves ‘agricultores ecologistas’, which refers to this activism. They consider themselves different from the broader movement towards organic production which evolved later. The subtle difference between their name and terms like ‘organico’ or other terms such as ‘agro-ecologia’ can easily be missed by a visitor.

However, these things were explained to me by Flávia Marques with whom I went there and who is one of the professors at the Post graduate program for rural development (PGDR) and who has worked with various of the farmers for years. One of the farmers on the market is specialised in plants for medicinal uses, the topic of her doctorate thesis. Further down the market there was also an empty stand with an elderly woman sitting behind it. Here people can get free advice on ailments also from a natural medicinal or holistic point of view. This week, at the two farm visits near Pelotas, both farmers had an extensive garden with herbs for medicinal use near the house. Also the municipal garden in Dois Irmãos had an herbal garden organised around the various human organs. It is one of the many striking differences compared to home for me. I learned that knowledge of the beneficial use of herbs is widespread and is not limited to organic farmers or ecologically oriented consumers.

AFNs in Pelotas, Brasil

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This week I am visiting the city of Pelotas, some 250 kilometers from Porto Alegre. As one of the three in the whole of Brasil, the Universidade Federal de Pelotas has a specialised Bachelor degree in anthropology. Today I will give a guest lecture within the course on food culture of Professor Renate Menasche on the link between Alternative Food Networks and food culture. Last week in the course for the PGDR in Porto Alegre, many students believed there are no AFNs in Brasil and that consumers are not willing to make an effort to engage with farmers. However, on our fieldtrip of yesterday we saw two very interesting examples of innovative farmers around Pelotas who produce differently ánd who market their produce differently.

Enio Nilo Schiavon took the time to lead us around his farm where he combines agro-forestry and agro-ecology practices in producing organic peaches, grapes, clementines, banana, sweet corn, broccoli, carrots, beets, fish and flowers and home-made juices. His production is organic but not organically certified, something which for smaller farmers is very normal; organic certification is too expensive. However, there are various ways to market organic produce without the official farm certification. For example by being part of a cooperative which has the certification and through this, the farm is also recognised as such. Or by building a trust relationship directly with consumers by way of selling on a farmers’ market. The latter is what Enio Nilo does, two times a week in two cities in this region. The farmers’ market are an initiative of the farmers themselves and are organised through their association ARPA-SUL. They are with 27  farmers, each offering other complementary products. Interestingly, they not only sell to the middle-class urban consumer, but also to many other small farmers in the region who are themselves tobacco growers.

A school meal in Dois Irmáos (3)

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The school meal program in Dois Irmáos is an exceptionally good example for multiple reasons. First, there is a dialogue between rural extension, family farmers, the nutritionists and the municipality. This cannot be taken for granted and the absence of mutual understanding and trust is often a barrier in other places. The state is often not trusted by farmers, governments can change. Nutritionists may think too much in terms of nutrients and hygiene whereas family farmers are often not organised enough to meet the supply requirements.  Or the cooking staff might object. In class, the example was given of a land settlement women’s cooperative baking bread which was refused by a school because the breads were too big and the cooking staff objected against having to cut the bread (instead of individual bread rolls).

Secondly, the facilities were modern, clean and spacious with lots of different activities for children. The school meal is strictly speaking not served at school but at the after-school day care center. It is normal in Brasil that children only go to school half a day. Most children go home afterwards and eat at home. A school meal is for those who need it, this can be because there is food insecurity at home, or quite the opposite, because both parents are working. In the case of the center we visited, it was aimed at children from the latter category. One of the activities is cooking lessons.

Thirdly, the scale of Dois Irmáos is that of a small town which makes it easier to localise the school meal. Not only because there are not too many mouths to be fed but also because of the logistics and coordination of getting the supply at times and intervals needed. The city of Porto Alegre is only now starting to look at possibilities to localise the school food from surrounding family farmers. Quite a challenge with the amount of children in schools and the metropolitan landscape.

A school meal in Dois Irmáos (2)

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Municipal garden farmer explains

The Brazilian School Food Program underwent a lot of changes and, as posted earlier, the biggest change is related to localisation of the school meals. Previously, national menu’s with national tendering contract for enormous quantities to which only big companies were able to bid competitively were what the program was about. To give an idea, for 2010 the estimation was a total school food procurement market of 3 billion dollar providing food for 47 million students. Now cities and municipalities are responsible for contract tendering and supply selection. This has created opportunities to shorten the food chain although many municipalities still follow the logic of mass production and long supply chains (Triches and Schneider 2010). Therefore, additional Law 11947 created the rule that 30% of fresh produce has to come from the ‘family farm’.

Opportunities, but it has also created challenges. At municipal level, capacity is now assumed for things like the nutritional balance of menu’s based on local products, the legal process of tendering and supplier selection with many more suppliers and overseeing the many other issues such as logistics. Not all municipalities do have this capacity yet. Equally, not all ‘family farmers’ are equipped to supply particular quantities and collaborate with colleague farmers to meet demand.

However, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul many good examples can be found too. One of these is the school food program in the city of Dois Irmáos (see also Triches and Schneider 2010 in Portuguese). The municipality created a municipal ‘huerta’, a vegetable production garden which produces almost all greens for the school meals. Furthermore in collaboration with Rural Extension a pool of 160 family farmers is working with the program. Every 6 months, the municipality calls a tender to buy its supply for the coming half a year. Each time, 10 to 15 farmers of this pool are selected to supply foods like potatoes, onions, milk and meat. Although the bureaucracy involved in this tendering process is one of the biggest problems, the family farmers are not subject to the same legal scrutiny as is normal for other products. Buying from family farmers is done through a separate program PAA (Food acquisition program) where a certificate is needed which proves that the farmer can be classified as a ‘family farmer’ but where the language is different and the product descriptions simpler such as ‘salad’ or ‘potato’ rather than a legal description. The after-school which we visited invested in its own meat-cutting room in response to buying fresh meat from local farmers. Local nutritional studies show that the children like the meat and other food better.

A School meal in Dois Irmáos

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Brasil has a School Food Program since 1955. In the last decade or so it underwent a lot of changes. Maybe one of the biggest changes is that the program was progressively decentralised since 2000. The school food program became part of a number of connected policies under the umbrella of Zero Hunger. As part of the course that I teach in Porto Alegre at the moment, we went to see the municipal school meal program in the small city of Dois Irmáos, approximately 60 kilometers from Porto Alegre (in the most southern state Rio Grande do Sul). The city – or town rather – in the metropolitan area around Porto Alegre of 37.000 inhabitants was established by Germans and it is still very much a German generations town.

We were impressed with the presentation of the municipal vegetable farm, the explanation of the system by the two municipal nutritionists and by the after-school facilities which actually serve the school meal (more about all this later). The students in class were bench marking what they saw with what they experienced and saw elsewhere and commented on the high quality of the facilities. In places with less wealth and commuter communities, it may look different, they said. We were just in time to see the last round of kids having their meal. We ourselves had an early start and were quite looking forward to a meal too…so we were offered a school meal. The picture below shows what I ate. But it can’t by no means be viewed as a standard Brazilian school meal. Not only because the School Food Program was decentralised to cater for local food habits and local produce but also because one image can never explain a system anyway. See the many comments made on this website where school meal pictures from all over the world are shown.

rice beans potato salad chicken coliflower and lettuce