Unrelated to life on the farm

After Avery returned to the United States to take a geology course and finish his undergraduate degree, I spent my time in Rio de Janeiro looking for volunteer opportunities and visiting friends.

In between the waiting for people to return my phone calls and emails, I managed to visit a few museums and take some fun pictures.

These were the two that stood out the most.

Check out all those knives

Designer hammock

A bit more about my host family

This is where I´ll be for the next two weeks

"Direct from the Field" is a component of the government's food security program that allows farmers to sell their produce directly to the consumer.

Although the program is not perfect, Marcio says that by selling 20% of his harvest directly to the consumer, he makes more money than he does by selling the other 80% of his harvest to middlemen and other markets.

Marcio's market days in Belo Horizonte are Tuesdays and Fridays. He leaves home at 1:00 a.m. to prepare his two booths for the 6:00 a.m. One of his spots is in the heart of downtown, and the other one is just across the viaduct from the center.

Since he has been doing this for many years now, he has built up a strong clientele that depends on his produce twice a week. His return customers know where their produce is coming from, and they also know that their money is going directly to Marcio. He jokes around with shoppers and is very friendly with them  - he's developed these relationships for over a decade.

He grows and sells arugula, spinach, mustard leaves, head lettuce, leaf lettuce, mint, parsley, basil, broccoli, and tomatoes.

He says his biggest competitor is the supermarket because he can't offer the variety. Many consumers want to be able to buy all of their groceries (and other products) in one trip. They can't do that at Marcio's booth. He realized that if he doesn't carry staple products, like eggs, oranges, and bananas, his customers would go elsewhere. So he buys them in bulk and resells them to his customers.

Many of the other producers near Marcio only produce lettuce. He told me that if he stocked his stand with only lettuce, he wouldn't sell anything. So he had to diversify to meet the demands of the market.

He has taken advantage of these programs to help his family and made tremendous sacrifices to be able to provide for his family, but he knows that it will pay dividends. His oldest son graduated high school and is in the middle of his first year of university. His other kids are well on their way to complete school with the expectation that they go to college.

To the field

I have spent the last three days harvesting mustard leaves and arugala in a agricultural settlement two hours outside of Belo Horizonte.

I took a night bus from Rio de Janeiro to Belo Horizonte on Monday night, planning to spend the next two weeks helping some farmers in a community of about 20 families.

All I had were my belongings, the most important of which was a piece of paper that had a name and cell phone number for the guy, Marcio, I was supposed to meet Tuesday morning in BH.

Since my Portuguese is not strong yet, all I had established with Marcio in our brief conversation was the I was going to arrive in BH on Tuesday. He said that he would be in town that day, selling his produce.

We didn't talk about where I would be sleeping for the next two weeks. We didn't talk about whether I would be expected to pay him anything. I figured these details would best be left to our face-to-face meeting.

I was headed into the unknown without any idea where I would be the next day or what I would be doing. The last time I remember having this feeling was the first time I went to Arenillas.

By sunrise on Wednesday morning, I was picking mustard greens with Marcio and his sons in Assentamento Pastorinha, fully embracing my return to the countryside.

Twenty families live in the community, which was the produce of agrarian reform enacted 12 years ago. There is no Internet here. Cell reception is sporadic. Kids have to go the nearest town for school, and public transportation does not reach the site.

How did I end up here?

The church in Assentamento Pastorinha

When Avery and I met with the head of food security programs in Belo Horizonte three weeks ago, I mentioned that I would be interested in volunteering my time with some of their agriculture initiatives. He put me in touch with the head of ____ programs, who gave me the name and contact info for some farmers in Asesentamento Pastorinha.

After a few days of phone tag (which is expected when dealing with a community where you have to stand on top of a hill to get reception), I got in touch with Marcio. I told him I would be arriving in Belo Horizonte on Tuesday and would be willing to take a bus to his community.

He told me that he spends Tuesdays in Belo Horizonte, selling his produce on a street corner. Instead of shlepping my stuff to his community on my own, I could go with him and his son.

I arrived on the night bus from Rio de Janeiro and called Marcio to find out with street corner to meet him at. My Portuguese  over the phone is relatively weak, but I managed to understand enough of what he said to ask people in the bus station directions.

At first, I was told that I should take a bus there and told how to get to the bus stop. But after asking a few more people on my way to the bus stop, they told me that it would be faster if I walked there.

After 20 minutes walking through downtown Belo Horizonte, I finally found Marcio and his son, standing at their vegetable stand. They greeted me warmly and immediately started showing me the ropes of what life is like for smallholder farmers in BH.

Restaurante Popular

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Avery paid $0.49 for this meal. The Rio de Janeiro taxpayer paid the rest

Waiting in line outside the Restaurante Popular the Central Station in Rio de Janeiro, we knew this would not be our typical dining experience.

Surrounded by an eclectic mix of homeless people, street vendors, bus drivers, business people, and American backpackers, we all waited patiently for our turn to eat lunch at a restaurant that has become an example for food justice initiatives.  (I’m pretty sure that only the backpackers were thinking about the social implications of this meal...everyone else was just happy to get a great deal on lunch.)

As I mentioned in the blog about food security initiatives in Belo Horizonte, one of the signature aspects of the program is the Restaurante Popular. These eateries operate on the mission that the food should be nutritious, sufficient, and affordable for everyone.

Our plan was to eat at Brazil's first Restaurante Popular, the one in front of the bus station in Belo Horizonte, but our schedule didn't coincide with lunch hours. Fortunately for us and many in Brazil, it has become a national program with restaurants in major cities all over the country. In Rio de Janeiro, there are 16 restaurants that combine to serve 50,000 lunches and 20,000 breakfasts per day.

After a fun search through downtown Rio de Janeiro that included asking at least 14 people for directions, we finally found the restaurant. Actually, we didn’t quite find the restaurant - we found the line.

The line took some time to get moving, but we were eventually in the barebones cafeteria. The only signs on the wall are the ones that void the restaurant of responsibility for lost items, that you should put your tray away when you are done eating, that you can't take pictures, and that promote the project as a municipal initiative.

Every day, the restaurant serves rice, beans, salads, dessert, bread, fruit, juice, coffee, and a choice of protein (meat, chicken, or egg). If you do get the chance to eat at a Restaurante Popular, make sure that you keep your eyes open as you go through the line because if you miss out on a food item. There's no going back. I missed out on a salad, cookie, and a banana the first time we went.

The cafeteria-style seating promotes interaction among the clients. If I were a little stronger and confident with my Portuguese, I could see myself having a lot of fun at the table. Maybe that will be the goal by the time I leave Brazil.

I don’t know if I’m very qualified to write a restaurant review. I’ve watched ratatouille and The Simpsons’ episode where Homer becomes the food critic for The Springfield Shopper. Aside from that, I once glanced at The New York Times food section masthead while looking for the sports section.

Rio de Janeiro in photos

 

Avery and I were walking along the waterfront in the Flamengo neighborhood when we came across a lot of people dressed like the framers of the Constitution. It turns out it was a medical school graduation.

As we were walking by the main cathedral in Rio, we noticed there was a large crowd, TV crews, and a fire truck. My first instinct was the keep a cautious distance, while asking around to see what was going on. Avery's instinct was the go into the crowd and get a picture. It turns out that the old archbishop of Rio de Janeiro had died, and his casket was being transported by the fire department. Avery wondered why they didn't go with the more traditional hearse.

You know the feeling where you walk into a room, and you know you are surrounded by knowledge. That's what it feels like when you step into the three-story reading room at the Portuguese Language Library in Rio. 

We were taken aback when we saw a bunch of turds in a store window. It turns out that it's a gag shop with a great selection of fake poop that comes in various sizes and consistencies. I told Avery that they probably have someone in the backroom "pinching out" the samples all day before putting them in a dryer so they maintain form. 

We wanted to go say "hey" to Jesus on top of Corcovado, but the train was expensive and sold out for the next three hours. Avery put on his best glum face. Don't worry. He turned that frown upside down very quickly.

In Brazil, they sell boiled corn on the street and then wrap it in the corn husks to serve it. A brilliant idea.

The opening scream to the Crank Dat Soulja Boy song has been stuck in my since my first senior year of college. I have randomly burst into throughout the trip with Avery. So when we saw this poster as soon as we arrived in Rio, we knew that it was not a coincidence

Food security initiatives in Belo Horizonte

When Avery and I were scheming about places to go on our Brazil trip, there were a lot of ideas thrown around. The drawing board was full of high profile tourist destinations - Lencois-Maranhenses, Chapada Diamantina, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador de Bahia, Amazon, etc.

Then, Avery mentioned Belo Horizonte.

Although the city offers a few day`s worth of site seeing, Avery's reasons for including BH on the list had other motivations.

During the last few years while involved in and studying food justice movements, Belo Horizonte has consistently come up as a model for how cities can successfully tackle food insecurity with dynamic, inclusive programs.

After spending a year working on food security projects at the World Food Programme in Quito with limited academic background in the subject, I needed little convincing to put BH on our itinerary.

Fortuitously, a friend we met at our hostel in Belem put us in contact with the head of the Municipal Secretariat for Food and Nutrition Security, who was kind enough to schedule a meeting with him and another member of his office to discuss their work.

In 1993, the mayor of Belo Horizonte made it city policy that residents had a right to food. At the time 11 percent of the population was living in poverty and 20 percent of children were going hungry. The city developed dozens of innovative programs to ensure that people had improved food security, or "physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meet dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life."

The program was so successful that the president of Brazil used it as a model for the country's "zero hunger" program in 2003, including having the former mayor of Belo Horizonte lead the program.

What struck me as most impressive about the project is how inclusive they are. Within each in

Their work is broken down into six initiatives, each of which has several smaller projects. What struck me as most impressive about the project is how inclusive they are. Every initiative tries to engage as many different segments of the population as possible:

Promoting urban agriculture

The work in urban agriculture focuses on school and community gardens. It works to transform unused spaces into productive land to improve food and nutrition security. They also work in community tree nurseries, as well, to produce and sell seedlings in the metro area, which has the side benefit of creating economic opportunities for those working in the urban agriculture initiatives.

The monthly income for the farmers participating in the income-generating activities is $88 / month.

There is a program, called "Straight from the Field" where small-scale producers sell directly to the consumer. The project maintains some price controls to make sure it is a fair price and performs lab testing of the vegetables to ensure their quality.

They also manage three different types of markets for different types of producers and consumers

• Organic markets
• Open street markets
• Trade markets (They are like street markets but occur in the evening and usually include some recreational activities, as well)

Subsidizing commercialization of food

The main component of this initiative is the Restaurante Popular, which offers balanced, healthy, and safe meals at low costs, allowing portions of the population to access good food that they would otherwise not have the chance to eat.

In Belo Horizonte alone, they serve 14,000 meals per day. I would go into more detail about these, but that would steal thunder from tomorrow's blog post about our visit to the Restaurante Popular at the Central Station in Rio de Janeiro.

Stay tuned and get excited.

Nutritional and food assistance

The office hopes to give out 54,000,000 meals as part of the school feeding program in 2012. Depending on the type of educational institution, some students receive up to three feedings a day through the program to ensure a healthy, quality diet.

In fact, the food in the school feeding program is so good that the teachers make a big deal about being able to eat these meals.

For other types of institutions, such as senior citizen homes and homeless shelters, the municipality has other mechanisms for ensuring that their beneficiaries receive healthy food. Institutions that meet certain requirements can participate in food distributions directly from the municipality. For other types of institutions that don't meet those requirements, the municipality sets up a food bank to make sure those clients get served.

Supply and regulation of the markets

With the fluctuation of food prices, there are times when consumers can't afford safe, nutritious foods. So the municipality set up a network of stores that are required to sell at least 25 products for an established price of R$0.79 / kilo ($.19/lb). In exchange, the stores receive the benefits of a better location or reduced rent.

Education about food consumption

The office has a massive education component that works with institutions all over the metro area to promote healthy eating habits.

Many of their education campaigns are targeted toward those who process and handle foods to make sure they are doing it safely.

Employment and income generation

The people who we were talking to said that the best way to ensure that a person no longer suffers from hunger is to get them out of poverty. That is why the office has many programs geared toward income generation and job training.

They offer courses on food production, baking, pizza making, and many other themes to work with at-risk segments of the population to get them a decent job.

Because the issues of food security encompasses so many different fields, the office partners with other government agencies, NGOs, universities, and other entities in all of its undertakings. What struck me as one of the most impressive aspects of the project is how inclusive all the programs are.

After three and a half years in Ecuador, hearing so many people and governments talk about implementing projects that can have a sustained impact on the communities, it felt good to hear about projects making a significant difference. I have seen many projects in Ecuador trying to target these problems, but they don't receive necessary funds or other resources and, therefore, don't succeed. It was really refreshing and uplifting to see a local government commit sufficient resources to the success of food security projects.

After our meeting at the municipality, we had another meeting to discuss the region's food security projects. This one was set up by Avery through contacts he got from a professor at Michigan. We had lunch with someone who is doing research in land-use change in Belo Horizonte in the last 10 years. One of the impacts that he has noticed is the effect that the food security projects have had on farmers. He is just starting his research, but it was great to talk with another person about the work and get their perspective.

Belo Horizonte in photos

In addition to our adventures at seed-saving conferences and supporting student parties, Avery and I spent a few days exploring Belo Horizonte, Brazil's third largest city.

We are naturally drawn to markets: whether they be of the open-aired, souk variety, the wide-aisled supermarket, the farmers market, or the close-quartered municipal market. When everyone in BH was telling us that we needed to check out the central market, in naturally jumped to the top of our to-do list. 

You can find anything in the Mercado Central. Pet birds—dozens of species. Felafel and hummus—of course (though, that does not make them good). And steroids, lots of steroids.  This market has more nutrition and supplement stores than it does produce stands!

You want a shofar or split hoof bottle? They have them, too.

They also have bars in the middle of the market. I don't know if they set this up so all the husbands can drink while their wives go buy veggies or if it's set up like this for another reason.

Either way, Avery really liked the idea. In this photo, Avery is drinking a beer that was good but could really use an orange to bring out the flavor. (Think really weak Blue Moon, or painfully weak Oberon)

He said that he had never seen bars in markets during the day, but he really liked the idea.  It would probably go over very well in Burlington, Boulder, and Portland.

Normally, I'm told not to feed the lions. I wonder if the lion recycling can receives less material because people are afraid it will bite their hand off. 

Avery and I were impressed by the cacti in the botanical garden in BH. We had to find the proper angle to take this picture so the light would come out good but would also hide the grafitti smothering this cactus. 

This is Maleta, a shopping mall in BH that has turned into one of the best uses of aging commercial space I have ever seen. During the day, the place is full of used book stores and antique shops. At night, the place is full of bars and cool restaurants. 

The shopping complex also has this great store that specializes in street art supplies. We have been quite impressed by the quality of street art throughout Latin America. That work would not be possible without suppliers like these guys, Real Vandal.

Belo Horizonte boomed as a city at the beginning of the 20th century, so many of the old government institutions look like this. I don't really remember what this building was, but it doesn’t matter, because I probably just  said to Avery, "That's a cool-looking building. Can you take a picture of it?"

Seed saving conference

When the subject shifted from the modes of communication among the seed savers in Belo Horizonte to who was going to assume responsibility for the inventory, I kind of zoned out of the conversation for a second to reflect on the absurdity of the situation.

Here were these two American backpackers who don´t speak much Portuguese sitting in on a conversation that would impact the future of agribiodiversity in Belo Horizonte, and quite possibly, the rest of Brazil.

It was at this point that I raised my hand and meekly asked in broken Portuguese, "So, how do the seed savers talk to each other?"

There was a long pause as everyone in the circle turned their head towards my direction. Everyone seemed to be taken by surprise that I would say anything. I hadn't spoken above a whisper all day (and that was just to Avery). Or maybe something really interesting was happening behind me.

Then, in unison, everyone shifted their gaze to the woman sitting next to me, who translated my question, from Portuguese to Portuguese, so everyone could understand. They then spent the next 20 minutes trying talking about who should be in charge of letting everyone else know what was happening with the network and trying to pass all responsibility onto everyone else. 

This question was the crowning achievement of the day Avery and I spent at a day-long meeting on agrobiodiversity in Belo Horizonte hosted by the local urban agriculture network. 

If I hadn't spent the previous year working very closely with the seed-saving network in Ecuador, I would have had little idea what they were talking about. Luckily, most of the Portuguese words are cognates with the Spanish, so I grasped the main concepts.

Seven paragraphs into this post, you are probably wondering how we find our way into a conference on seed saving?

Well, it all started at our hostel in Belem when we started talking to a woman, who turned out to be a professor of international development at American University. When I told her I what I had been doing in Ecuador and what I was interested in doing in Brazil, she was nice enough to share some of her contacts with us.

After exchanging a few emails, Avery and I were waiting with a group of 50 gardeners and seed savers in the plaza outside an art museum in Belo Horizonte, preparing to take a bus to this rendezvous.

The meeting got off to an outstanding start, which was headlined by a sumptuous breakfast spread. After a few camaraderie-building exercises of singing, dancing, and hugging, the sessions got underway.

Someone spoke about the reasons for having a conference about agrobiodiversity: he said it was the limiting of the genetic variability in vegetables we eat, chemical and machines used in agriculture, and natural resource exploitation, among many others.  He went into a lot more detail, but given his monotone and how many times we have heard this (and with so much more energy), we need not get into it.

After he got the crowd warmed up, we got into breakaway sessions to talk about a few specific themes. The session was supposed to be a rotation between a few groups, but delays forced everyone to choose one station between the following options: conscious eating, seed saving processes, visits to a local farm, and medicinal plants.

After sizing up the people who would be giving the presentations, Avery and I decided that the husband-wife dynamic duo at the medicinal plant station would be our best bet. Also, we figured we had enough background in the other themes that we could potentially learn something at this station.

At this point, there was a little memorial session to honor a fallen seed saver and local environmentalist, which followed by a great snack before the breakaway groups.

The husband-wife group started the session by handing out leaves from different medicinal plants to each participant. We were told to close our eyes and use our other senses to get to know the leaves (a la “hug-a-tree”). After a few minutes, we could open our eyes and see what we were dealing with. Afterwards, the presenters then walked around the room and told people the names of the plants they were dealing with.

The separate sessions didn't finish on time, as is typical in breakaway sessions at most conferences, so while ours finished early, we were able to sneak into a few other ones.
The seed saving talk was interesting but didn't compare to fruit-salad making in the conscious eating station.

After that great appetizer, there was an outstanding lunch buffet followed by a tour of the ecologically-designed structures on the premises.

The afternoon sessions featured the glorious moment described at the beginning of the post where I made a constructive contribution to the day.

The day ended with an exchange of seeds, seedlings, preserves, artwork, and other items people brought from their farm. Avery and I didn't know about this exchange. Otherwise, we would have told everyone to bring their kitchen knives for us to sharpen—we are blazing a trail of sharp knives everywhere we go in South America (i.e. hostels, hosts, fellow backpackers).

In other exciting news, the woman sitting next to us would have slept all day, but her naps kept getting interrupted by the passing of materials around the room. Her first nap ended when the attendance sheet came around. He next nap ended when some other document was being distributed. In the breakaway session, she was awoken every time a different medicinal plant sample was passed around the room. Her phone woke her up during three separate naps, and for one call, she picked it up and had a 45 second conversation while the speaker was talking to the group (next to her!).

At one point, I leaned over the Avery and said "Can't a woman just get some sleep around here? C'mon!"