INSUAH Workshop in São Paulo

The team from Brazil distributed field visits not only to the eastern and southern gardens surveyed, but also provided a full-day experience in other urban garden contexts. INSUAH project partners from four countries began their experiences in gardens located in the peri-urban region of São Paulo’s far south. In the Kalipety tekoa, a village located within the Tenondé Porã Indigenous Land, they met Jera Guarani, an Indigenous woman leader who advocates for horizontal leadership, the reforestation of ancestral lands, and the cultivation of traditional corn varieties. During the visits, the group explored two sacred gardens (hortas de terreiros) located in Ilês where the African-based religion Candomblé is practiced. One of them belongs to Tata Katulemburange of Asé Ylê do Hozoouane, a priest and defender of ancestral herbs and sacred leaves. The other is led by Mãe Mona Maze, who not only cultivates sacred leaves for ceremonial use but also acts as a guardian of the land, preserving the natural space where she lives. The group also visited two family gardens. At Sítio Bebedouro, Rose shared how she integrates organic strawberry production with the protection of the surrounding conservation area. Meanwhile, Marlene – widely known in the Parelheiros region as a guardian of the Cambuci seed and a promoter of planting initiatives among other producers –  manages, together with her family, the Marlene Restaurant and Sítio dos Pereiras.

After these heritage-rich experiences in southern Brazilian communities with strong ancestral roots, INSUAH partners went to a peripheral Northern urban garden called Sustainable Green Plate, a community garden inside a public school land that has many initiatives on environmental education, food security, biodigester, meliponarium, aquaponics, hydroponics and seedlings greenhouse. Second garden was a south central one called Urban Farm, a private enterprise that has important efforts on composting solutions, targeting circular economy, such as the involvement of local restaurants and markets in donating organic waste for composting on public land along electricity lines; a little market with fresh and organic processed foods from local and regional producers, a cafeteria/ restaurant, and weekend cultural events on agroecology, music and sustainability.

Visits to urban vegetable gardens in the eastern zone began with a federal university extension project that is one of the only initiatives whose primary objective is to include people and put into practice afro-descendant religions values in the field of agroecology, as a lifetime form of resistance against cultural erasure. Project Cabaça Garden is a network of different afro-descendant religious temples coordinated by Iyalorixá Adriana de Nanã and Prof. Egeu Esteves, from the Sao Paulo Federal University. Its special feature is the preservation of the largest agrobiodiversity dedicated not only to food crops but also to plants used for spiritual healing, protection, and tribute to religious deities. The second eastern urban garden is the Vila Nancy/ Guaraciaba community garden, which has one of the largest collections on food and medicinal plants, as an important archive on genetic and cultural heritage species from different Brazilian biomas from several regions. Third, the Jose Bonifacio/Severina urban garden, stands out for its combination of local and biome-specific species and the exclusive use of traditional tools, representing a heritage of combined Indigenous and Afro-descendant knowledge. The fourth, Seu Goiano/Martins’ Quilombo Garden, is an important archive of herbal medicine through Afro-religious traditions and a hub of community cohesion via neighborhood food security. Finally, the Rare Seeds Guardian/Nilda Garden showcases Indigenous cosmovisions through agroforestry methods and the preservation of rare species, supported by farmers’ connections with Indigenous village networks.

Throughout the working meetings, important findings from each country’s case studies came to light. A number of issues were discussed, including food security, farmers’ health, composting methods, viability of organic production, land status and policies to support the gardens. Each country has different historical urban agriculture processes, so contradictions and dilemmas have persisted and imposed barriers to the valorization of urban gardens.

Urban agriculture is not only deeply connected to city dynamics but should also be recognized as a reservoir of cultural heritage, a means of resistance, a contributor to climate change mitigation, and a source of sociability, community cohesion, and nutrition.Other insights have provoked the INSUAH team to move forward on the mission of each country in extending and deepening the issue of heritage in urban agriculture. The first mission concerns the translation of heritage variables in each territory that can be important factors to be considered at the regional, national and international scales in urban agriculture policies. The second one is the challenge of transmitting intergenerational knowledge, once untangible features are not always recorded and legitimated by governments. Third, heritage as a collective endeavour, is a place-making process, deeply connected and interacted with urban food culture and social value systems at the local scale.

The final day of activities was marked by a mini-symposium, the closing meeting held at the University of São Paulo, at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA), with the participation of women farmers, researchers, and representatives of the public sector. Preliminary research data from other countries, the progress of the study in Brazil, and the intersection with public policy for urban agriculture in the city were presented. The event highlighted the importance of urban gardens and ancestral knowledge in preserving green spaces and promoting healthy eating in the city’s peripheral areas.

Text and images by INSUAH team Brazil