Wow – Oxford!

Amidst Oxford’s venerable scholastic buildings and grounds, I spoke to 60 local foodies in the equally sainted Vault and Garden Café (local, organic, and the site of Oxfam International’s founding). Loosely led by the wife-husband team of Ruth West and Colin Trudge,  the crowd of local food activists had gathered to see what they could do to catapult their local food movement to a higher level.

Their food system challenges and opportunities were familiar to me: interest in local food is zooming, farmers’ markets (Britain’s first wasn’t opened until 1998) and “box schemes” (similar to CSAs) are exploding, and institutional demand for healthy food (a la Jamie Oliver) is strong. The supply and distribution networks, however, aren’t up to snuff. A food hub that aggregates supply and facilitates distribution was the most likely way to scale up their efforts, but they weren’t sure how to do it.

Social justice concerns were also on the table. In contrast to Oxford’s vigorous pub life and bourgeoning technology center, the city has food deserts that limit the access to healthy and affordable food. At the same time, participation at farmers’ markets by low-income households is weak. For wannabe gardeners, the waiting list for allotments (community garden plots) was so long that staying on the list was more likely to benefit one’s children than one’s self.

With 60 pairs of eyes scanning me for answers, I offered up several policy options that had shown promise in the US: special coupons and food stamp incentive programs to bring low-income shoppers to the farmers’ markets; local food policy councils to organize foodies and build a constituency for food policy change; and aggregation schemes that were making it easier for farmers to sell to local schools, restaurants, and smaller retail outlets.

The farmers’ market coupon idea was a big hit. But government-supported food programs like food stamps were non-existent in Britain, which had opted (correctly in my opinion) for a more comprehensive form of social welfare, e.g. National Health Service. When asked if they should start more food banks (Britain has very few), I gave them the thumbs down. I advised them that local food projects, better organizing among food activists, and developing supportive public policies were the way to go. My recommendations were greeted with affirmative head nodding.

The concept of food policy councils also resonated with the Oxford-istas. While several large cities like London and Brighton have developed local food strategies – detailed public statements about promoting a healthy food system – citizen groups don’t have a venue to advocate for those strategies.

In less than 5 minutes the assembled crowd created a 12-point action plan which included more allotments, coupon incentives, and aggregation schemes.  Four whip-smart Oxford students volunteered their services as researchers, and a date for the next meeting was set. I was stunned by how swiftly they had girded their loins for battle. The local cheese and beer that followed further cemented their commitment.

London Swings

Arriving in London in the aftermath of Britain’s national election, I carefully picked my way through the TV equipment and comely news anchors that ringed the Houses of Parliament. My talk that day was with the London-based new economics foundation, a self-styled alternative think-tank that draws on the teachings of E.F. Schumacher (its preference for the lower-case, I surmised, was out of deference to the notion that small is beautiful).

The audience reinforced my Oxford observations: great local projects, highly engaged activists, but inter-group cohesion and policy work were lacking. Two women in the group, Susan Steed and Clare Patey, stood out for their project work. Susan’s territory is Brixton, a hardscrabble working class section of London where she oversees the Brixton “pound” local currency project. Like similar projects in Ithaca (NY) and the Berkshires (Mass.) that value local goods and services for barter and exchange purposes, the Brixton pound supports local businesses, community connections, and a smaller carbon footprint. Unlike these rarefied U.S. communities, however, Brixton is a rough and tumble place with a reputation for sticking it to the man on occasion (think “The Guns of Brixton” by the Clash). The image on the Brixton “pound note” was of a bull-horn toting black man rousting the community to action. Contrast this with the image of a well-dressed 19^th century white guy on the “Berkshare.” Call it Brit grit versus Mass mellow.

Clare Patey is the creator of “Feast on the Bridge,” which for the past three Septembers has turned the Thames Southwark Bridge into the site of Britain’s premiere food celebration. She showed me photos of the bridge’s entire span covered from end to end with white linen clothed tables and thousands of chairs. Locally and sustainably produced food served by the country’s best chefs is the feature event, but it’s nearly upstaged by thousands of children who parade across the bridge in crazy food costumes. You can also bob for apples, stomp grapes, and partake in the Sacred Mayonnaise Ritual (you gotta be British to get it).

Feast on the Bridge demonstrates how far British food has come since the unfortunate days of “bubble and squeak.”  The Brixton “pound” transforms an idea with much cache in white, bright university towns into a symbol of economic revival in low-income communities. But are these groups working together to secure the promise of a food revolution for all? Are they using the broad shoulders of government to push for authentic food system change? I would need to push on to Wales for answers.

Wales Awash in Innovation

As stimulating as London and Oxford were, Cardiff, the capitol of Wales, embodied both progress and opportunity in the British food system. Through its formerly gritty port, Cardiff once shipped the Welsh coal that stoked England’s “satanic mills.” But thanks to Margaret Thatcher, the coalfields are dead, and the valleys that depended on them are mired in poverty. Cardiff, on the other hand, reinvented itself as both the heart of Welsh culture – including its tongue-twisting language – and its own blend of new Euro-urbanism.

I had the privilege of spending a day with two leaders in the Welsh food system, Stephen Garrett and Professor Kevin Morgan. Garrett – long-haired, black-bereted, and a self-described “child of the sixties” – is one of those special cats whose charm and integrity allow him to get away with starting trouble.  He runs the Riverside Community Market Association which is responsible for operating farmers’ markets, urban gardens, and a new 10-acre city youth farm. His organization also agitates for a sustainable Cardiff food system and played a part in a Welsh government initiative that developed 200 food coops in rural places where coal’s demise had left the people without economic opportunity or healthy food options. I said to myself that here’s a guy who’s really connecting the dots.

To be sure we saw the dark side of the British system Steven took us to the old Cardiff Market for lunch. The market hall dates back to the 19^th century and has seen better days. Stopping at one of its artery clogging eateries, Stephen guided me through a lunchtime order that included faggots (meatballs) and peas, Clark’s pie (a fatty meat concoction wrapped in barely cooked dough), and chips (fries) smothered in gravy.

Laughing at my lack of gustatory enthusiasm, Stephen told me that the city had given him permission to locate a farmers’ market on the public market’s main street. This will raise the profile of local food even more and give shoppers access to top-notch produce. When I asked Stephen what he thought was behind the dramatic uptick in local food interest, he cited Britain’s mad cow disease outbreak, memories of World War Two’s food shortages, and the Jamie Oliver craze. “Food is the new sex,” is the way he summed it up.

Walking off our lunch on the quays of Cardiff harbor, I asked Stephen about his challenges. As I’d heard in Oxford, he said it’s hard to attract low-income people to the farmers’ markets (he loved the Farmers Market Nutrition Program idea), and while the City of Cardiff has a food strategy on its books, there’s no one advocating for it (he liked the food policy council idea as well). Progressive food projects and ideas already abound in Wales. The challenge is to connect them.

After speaking to a Cardiff University audience that evening, I had dinner with Kevin Morgan whose deep, resonant voice sounds like its about to break into a Dylan Thomas poem. He is a Professor at the School of Planning, and with his co-author, Roberta Sonnino, wrote The School Food Revolution. Over the best lamb shank dish I’ve ever eaten (related no doubt to those fleeced darlings I saw leaping gaily across verdant Welsh hillsides), we discussed his book’s central theme: using the purchasing power of government – the “power of the public plate” as Kevin calls it – to leverage a wide range of economic, social, and environmental benefits.

Kevin’s opinions do little to conceal his heritage. As the son of a coal miner, he has no patience for the laissez-faire market policies of conservative politicians. He feels passionately that government must intervene to equitably distribute benefits when the market place fails. “Why not use the power of the public purse to stimulate economic growth, healthy eating, and lower carbon emissions?  After all, aren’t these outcomes desired by everyone?” he asked between enthusiastic gulps of wine. Kevin argues eloquently for the re-localization of the food chain saying that, “the power of purchase is one of the most influential means through which the state can effect behavioral change in economy and society.”

He cites the East Ayrshire, Scotland school district where purchasing officials decided to wring as much benefit as they could out of every school food expenditure. What distinguishes this approach from America’s farm-to-school movement is that it doesn’t just focus on buying more local food. It asks, and in many cases demands, that the food be produced sustainably if not organically, that fair wages be paid to everyone in the food chain, that packaging be reduced and recycling promoted, that job training programs are available to unskilled and disadvantaged people, and that the distance between the source and the user be shortened as much as possible.

The results are impressive. In this district of 120,000 people, food miles were reduced from 330 miles to 99 miles, and the economic multiplier effect contributed an additional $260,000 to the local economy in just one year.  And oh yes, student satisfaction with the meals was significantly higher when compared to the previous scheme.

By trip’s end I had concluded that British food fighters are nearly as prevalent as their nations’ sheep, but considerably more aggressive. People like Ruth, Clare, and Stephen are hard at work building a just and sustainable British food system. As their movement coalesces and engages policymakers at all levels, their chances of success will only increase.

“Observe,” Chef Beto Pimentel said as he held the cacau fruit up for a moment of quiet admiration before slamming it against a cement wall. A popping noise brought a thin crack through the shell, we coaxed it open, and there it was, the science of cacau.

This was no ordinary cacau. Carved out in the heart of Salvador, Brazil’s third largest city and the capital of the state of Bahia, lives a refuge of native species. Some are rare and almost forgotten, others are more normally seen on large plantations. The guardian of this tropical orchard is Beto Pimentel, and guard he does – with zeal and dedication.

Achaichairu, biri biri, umbu, licuri. These are merely a few of Beto’s prized native fruits… the list goes on – and on. Agronomist-turned-restaurant-visionary, Beto has researched and collected native species for over two decades, procuring them through his travels, or chancing upon them in his wanderings. His work in labs and his own orchards has given rise to the restoration of many a fading fruit. These days, Beto shares his passion for reviving these waning species by donating fruit trees, gifting rare seeds, and transmitting his contagious and purely sincere dedication to anyone he meets.

I spoke with Beto at his restaurant, Paraíso Tropical (Tropical Paradise) a well-hidden enclave complete with the 60-hectare orchard and the 6,000 – yes six thousand – native fruit trees it harbors. These fruits, along with the cassava, hot peppers, and herbs grown on the orchard, build the dishes for which the unique restaurant is famous. Drawing from the on-site orchard in Salvador as well as his second farm near Foz de Iguaçu (on the border of Argentina and Brazil), Beto and his team create new flavors and fresh awareness about the Brazilian food supply and traditions.

As we sat, Beto ordered a steady stream of creative dishes for us, barely finishing one thought before he remembered a better, more exciting fruit to share with me. Weaving through multiple conversations simultaneously, Beto gave the impression of having too many fruits and ideas to share and not enough time to do so. I had hardly begun to understand my salad of dime-sized coconuts and jambo flower when Beto grabbed me by the arm and pulled me through his orchard.

At what seemed the speed of light, we toured (or jogged may be more accurate) through the orchard, whose soil Beto restored and built up from scratch. We had just passed some lost-looking chickens (Beto grumbled to himself about broken fences) when the chef began our rapid-fire fruit tasting. There was starfruit, four varieties of mango, cupuaçu, umbu-caja, and countless others whose names now escape me.

Yet while the lush restaurant and its lively owner certainly charm patrons, Beto has a wider vision for the work. Active in Slow Food Brasil and a participant of the food sustainability network Terra Madre, Beto is working to bring sustainable growing and food diversity to a population that, according to him, only wants to know about bananas and apples. “If we don’t value our own foods, who will?” he asked.

The movement for ecologically-responsible and traditional foods within Brazil could not hope for a better advocate than Beto Pimentel. “Slow Food,” he stated with conviction, “if taken seriously, could save the world.” And he certainly takes it seriously; his restaurant is widely reviewed in Salvador and most recently he and his fruits won serious airtime on Mais Você, one of the most followed television shows in Brazil.

But the chef-activist-farmer is no idealist. In a state plagued with drought throughout its agricultural lands, a farmer livelihood is barely eeked out in between rains. In the dry sertão of the state’s interior, according to Beto, leadership is lacking, as is the momentum to change and experiment. While Slow Food Brasil hosts events celebrating northeast crops such as umbu and heritage rice varieties, the market for these foods and for the organic label remains narrow.

In this market, between the agricultural sertão and the unmistakably urban Salvador, the notion of organic is only beginning to reappear. Beto’s restaurant serves as a test lab, playground, classroom, showcase… an invitation to the possibilities and varieties of Brazilian flora. Beto continues on his quest to spread the word one conversation, tangent, and fruit tree at a time – but as I closed out our interview and headed to the bus he confessed, “I’m just trying to have clean conscience by the time I go.”

Belo Horizonte is the stuff of food security legend. BH (pronounced beh-agah), as it is known by locals, has been on the radar of food systems folks since their innovative programming began in the early 90s, and their recognition has only grown over time. Attention has come in the form of shoutouts by the Lappe mother-daughter team in Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, the Huffington Post and Yes! Magazine and the 2009 Future Policy Award from the World Future Council, to name a few. As topics relating to food security and the future of agriculture rise on the government priority lists and health-related NGOs, more and more eyes turn towards BH for best practices. So it was with nearly four years of built-up anticipation that I arrived in BH for a whirlwind tour of all things food and ag.

BH is Brazil’s third largest city. With nearly three million residents in the city proper, and nearly double that in the metropolitan area (which includes the city’s vast stretch of favela-like communities). But staring out the window of the bus only an hour before entering the city, one would never know a metropolis was just around the corner. BH is situated in central Minas Gerais, a state that earned its place on the map when the Portuguese discovered gold here early in Brazil’s colonial period. Mining (“minas” is Portuguese for mines) brought massive wealth to this vast stretch of verdant, breathtakingly beautiful land with its ever-rolling hills, waterfalls, and semi-tropical vegetation. As the mining industry grew, the state became one of Brazil’s wealthiest, and between the mining industry and the ideal growing climate, Minas came into its own with splendor and grace.

Long story short, the mining boom didn’t last forever (it never does). And although mining still remains an important economic activity here in Minas Gerais, it is nowhere near as central to the state’s economy as it was back in the good ‘ole days. But before the massive decline ensued, the mine-owners needed labor. And labor they brought. Over time, their workers ranged from African slaves to native Indio peoples from Amazonas to, more recently, internal migrants (from a number of ethnic backgrounds) seeking higher wages and a better life.

Today, the purpose-built capitol of BH struggles tremendously with ever-growing migrant communities. With the decline of mining, many laborers have found themselves out of work. In addition, Brazil’s tumultuous land-use situation has pushed many off subsistence plots, thus stripping farmers of their livelihoods. And, as the story goes worldwide, millions of these displaced, out-of-work folks have moved towards urban centers in search of work and educational opportunities for their children.

But the differences between BH and other rapidly-growing cities cannot be underestimated, and thus lies the nugget of gold that brought me to this food security mecca. In 1993, puzzling over what to do about skyrocketing food prices (and all the subsequent health problems), a growing poor population, and a loss of marketing opportunities for rural farmers, BH had the brilliant idea to centralize, in one municipal department, the Belo Horizonte Secretariat for Food Policy and Supply [PDF] (SMAAB in Portuguese). This department governs all the programs that deal, even tangentially, with food access, nutrition, and producer livelihood. What has unfolded over the past 17 years seems to be simultaneously “keep it simple, stupid” obvious and remarkably and bravely innovative.

The core tenants of SMAAB’s work are clear: food is a human right, not a commodity; everyone should be able to access and afford to eat healthy, nutritious food; nutrition is a vital component of public and personal health; and producers of food deserve fair marketing opportunities and wages. From those basic principles emerged a system of integrative planning and programmatic implementation that includes (ready? this is the bona fide bulletpoint list from the government of BH): direct marketing, warehouse marketing, organic markets, community and school gardens and orchards, central municipal supply, popular markets, a market district, food and nutrition education, courses for food handlers, food banks, food assistance programs, a free and fair trade model, research baskets, school food policies, popular restaurants, planting in alternative spaces, training agricultural workers (both urban and rural), supply for retail shops, and, to keep all the number-hungry politicos and grant-makers happy, the research-oriented Center for Information and Documentation.

As if this weren’t enough, BH has been blessed with a number of NGOs working on food, agriculture, and health issues on the community level. One such group, REDE de Intercambio de Tecnologias Alternativas (The Network for Exchange of Alternative Technologies), a non-profit that works at the household and community level to empower, educate, and train low-income BH residents in techniques to improve their health, environment, and quality of life. Their programs and accomplishments are too numerous to list here, but suffice it to say, they are a small but very busy team, and I have seldom stumbled across such savvy, engaged, progressive, and hard-working activists.

I could go into extensive detail about the workings of these programs, but instead I suggest you check out the Future Policy Award brochure, read the Lappes’ accounts, and peruse (with the help of a translator) REDE’s website. What I want to focus on is the stories I heard and the sights I saw, as for me, that’s where the proof of true success lies.

With city government representatives, I first visited a small organic market stand on a busy neighborhood corner. This particular producer (who we’ll call Joao) and his wife come three times a week to three different stall locations from their home 40k outside the city bearing bushel upon bushel of fruits, grains, vegetables, and preserves. Most of these they grow themselves, some they trade for with other organic producers in their community to diversify their market offerings. We arrived at 10:30 a.m. and they were almost entirely sold out. Empty crates sat piled by their truck, in preparation for the early afternoon trip home. While chatting over the benefits of having such marketing opportunities, Joao told me that they have been able to make plenty to live off of from their large garden alone. But he was careful to emphasize that the best part about the city marketing opportunity was the relationships he and his wife had formed. Nearly all of their customers are regulars, and they have adapted their production to accomodate local demands. Many city residents have standing orders which Joao and his wife keep on reserve until they can be picked up. When a regular customer is sick, they make local deliveries. And once, when their truck broke down en route into the city and the stall wasn’t set up, Joao told me he received nearly thirty phone calls from anxious customers wondering what had happened. I can relate, as working at farmers markets and in CSA sheds has always been the highlight of my ag-related jobs. To me, the best part of working with food and agriculture is the creation of these strong human bonds.

Next we headed to another BH neighborhood to visit another market stall. This particular producer (we’ll call him Ailton) and his wife (and, we’ll call her Carla) come twice a week to set up a sprawling display of gorgeous greens. For the first time since arriving in Brazil, I saw the likes of mizuna, artichokes, bok choy, and cherry tomatoes. This couple revels in the art of cultivating unusual crops, as expressed by Carla as she waxed poetic over the sublime flavor of her spicy greens and the beauty of their Italian artichoke varieties. And their customers reveal just as much glee from snatching them up. Carla and Ailton were originally courted by a local gym (of which there are a surprising number here in Brazil, and a particularly high concentration in BH) to serve health-conscious people in their post-workout shop. But in the years since then, local families and a handful of chefs have started to frequent the stand as well. Carla and Ailton’s stall was also nearly empty by 11:30 in the morning, save for a few heads of lettuce. When I asked them if they needed to have any off-farm work to supplement their income, they laughed. The city markets have provided more than enough for their lifestyle, and they can’t imagine doing anything other than the work they so love.

Hungry after eyeing gorgeous producers all morning, we headed to one of the city’s Restaurantes Populares. These remarkable programs, which serve approximately 16,000 nutritious, regionally-sourced meals a day (three meals a day) for less than a dollar a pop. As I guiltily cut the line with my hosts, I noticed a line that wound around the corner, down the stairs, and into the parking lot. This program is indeed feeding people, and lots of them.

Sated, we headed out to the source, a third-generation eight-acre organic family farm about 50km outside of BH proper. Stephen, a strapping hulk of a young man, greeted us donning his Prefeitura BH (BH City Government) hat, an immediate sign of his feelings about the city’s work to improve agricultural technology and marketing opportunities. We spent the afternoon wandering his fields and hoophouses and chatting about his family. He and his three brothers grow nearly 30 varieties of fruits and vegetables for themselves and markets, and are now beginning to experiment with aquaponics. They have received technical assistance from city extension agents, helping them to make their land-use more efficient. Their production and marketing has been so successful in the past couple of years that they have been able to move off the farm to a house closer to the village, and have been able to purchase basic appliances and vehicles to improve their quality of life and that of their children. The process seems so simple, the goals so obvious. And yet, these are they types of programs we so struggle to initiate in the United States.

I spent the next day scouting neighborhood projects with REDE. From a small garden started on a formerly druglord-infested corner to an enormous school garden project (this is more like a school jungle, complete with terracing and a shaded hoophouse for crops that can’t stand the midday Brazilian sun). We ended the evening sitting in a backyard garden REDE had helped to plant. An old woman and her husband lovingly tended a chicken coop, three thriving orange trees, a vegetable patch, and banana and papaya groves. I was amazed by the sheer amount of food produced in this small space, and my friends at REDE helpfully explained to me that all their work is done with a focus on agro-ecology — a technique that considers environmental, human, and cultural health. We watched the sun set over the remarkably rural favela as we sat carving the peels off of perfectly ripe oranges, the delightfully tart juice dripping down our arms and chins, the perfect end to a hot day.

Belo Horizonte certainly hasn’t solved all their food-related problems (not that I can think of a city that has). But what so impressed me was the willingness to integrate, to share information, to bring new players into the fold, and most importantly, to demand attention for nutritious, affordable food as an absolute necessity. It seems to me, if all of us working in and around cities could integrate just a bit of BH’s model into our own work, we would be well on our way to a series of more just, sustainable, and — let’s get serious — delicious food systems.

Attending Terra Madre in Torino, Italy in October 2008 was one of the highlights of my young career. In an enormous conference center built for the winter Olympic games, over 7,000 farmers, chefs, academics, students, fisherfolk, environmentalists, and writers gathered together for a week of discussion, celebration, networking and, of course, eating. The collective energy was overwhelming, and inspired me for months afterwards. So when contacts from Slow Food Sao Paulo invited me to attend the second Terra Madre Brasil—a national meeting of Slow Food affiliates from all over Brazil—I was eager to re-experience the infectious energy I felt in Torino in the country with which I am so quickly falling head-over-heels in love.

The setting, I must say, was a strange one. Brasilia is a bizarre city, and certainly not the first Brazilian locale that comes to mind when I think of a sustainable food conference (especially when cities like Curitiba and Belo Horizonte are hailed for their sustainability initiatives). Brasilia was built as the “city of the future,” the only community built in the 20th century to be dubbed a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The purpose-built capitol of the country, it is renowned for its sleek architecture, innovative layout, and futurist bent. But what was considered wise urban planning half a century ago (Brasilia is celebrating its 50-year anniversary this year) is now the cause for growing concern. Why? Cars.

In 1960, peak oil wasn’t even a gleam in the eye of the catch-phrase makers’ eyes, and automobiles were all the rage. What then seemed like a brilliant idea—designing a city that would facilitate easy driving and parking—is now a challenge to the city that has, like many others in the Southern hemisphere, sprawled at an alarming rate. Residents complain of ever-worsening traffic, and the city’s pathetically short metro system does little to ease the commutes of wealthy suburbanites and poor favela residents living on the outskirts of town.

However, what Brasilia lacks in environmental modeling, it makes up for in political sway. As the home of Brazil’s embassies and most of its national politicians, the organizers of Terra Madre Brasil believed they could gain political visibility for their cause by locating their 550-person conference smack in the middle of the federal district of the capitol.

For four days, the FUNARTE Cultural Complex buzzed with energy. Progressive high-profile Brazilian chefs sourcing their produce from sustainable family farms, traditional manioc and palmito farmers, radical filmmakers, students of agriculture and nutrition, small-scale specialty food producers, apiculturists who tend rare stingless Brazilian honeybees, academics, and urban guerilla gardeners mingled tirelessly. They lent their energy and trademark Brazilian passion to workshops, tasting sessions, artisanal markets, lectures, and brainstorming sessions. The event was capped by an impassioned speech by Slow Food’s founder, Carlo Petrini, who extolled the unique nature of Brazil’s biodiversity, gastronomic heritage, and strong roots in agriculture.

I was fired up as I rode the bus back to my friend’s apartment on Monday evening as the sun began to sink in the vast Cerrado sky. I found myself contemplating why I felt such a different energy at Terra Madre Brasil than I often do at sustainable food events in the U.S. At Terra Madre Brasil, a tasting wasn’t just a tasting, it was a showcase of fruits native to the Cerrado and Amazon that are under threat by urban sprawl and agribusinesses. A display of manioc-derived products wasn’t merely a fancy food show, it was an exposition of native Indio culture and a call to protect Brazil’s staple food in all its magnificent incarnations. A roundtable of chefs wasn’t merely chew-the-fat smalltalk and self-promotion, it was a salon of philosophies, a legitimate questioning of how to protect Brazil’s unique and remarkably diverse culture through gastronomy. That level of activation, of engagement with the core issues affecting food and agriculture, was so enticing to me. And yet it felt a bit foreign.

If I had to pinpoint my top pet peeve about the food movement back home, it is that we are often too timid. This, it seems, has been changing quickly in the past few years, but I believe Americans—particularly those in their 20s and 30s that have grown up in largely peaceful, prosperous times— have become fairly complacent politically. Yes, we staged protests against the war in Iraq, and yes, we elected Obama. But the word “revolt”—the call to rebel against the circumstances we’ve been handed— still feels a bit taboo, a bit too radical for those of us who have grown accustomed to our creature comforts in the age of easy money and disposable culture. When compared to the highly participatory, dynamic democracy that so characterizes Brazil and other Latin American countries’ political climates, the level of rabble rousing in the States often feels like standing water next to the Iguacu Falls of Brazil.

So perhaps the most satisfying aspect of Terra Madre Brasil, for me, was the thread of explicit political activism that colored the entire event. From the banners lining the FUNARTE Cultural Complex donned with the call to action “Let’s Prepare a Revolution Together” to the conference participants representing the MST, Brazil’s famed landless peasants’ movement, Terra Madre Brasil wore its politics on its sleeve. There are few places more exciting than Brazil at this moment to explore land use, agriculture, conservation, food access and sustainability. Unlike in the U.S., where food and agriculture still remains a fringe issue to the political mainstream, in Brazil, issues around hunger, environment and agriculture always seem to be on the political table. Right where they belong.

March 1, 2010: Sao Paulo. Some call it the New York of the Southern Hemisphere. A sprawling megalopolis of nearly 20 million people known as one of the most dangerous cities in the world and the best example of Brazil’s tragically large gap between rich and poor. With these tidbits conglomerated together into wary expectations, I sat tensely as we idled in standstill traffic en route into the city. Sao Paulo’s skyscrapers, its sagging favelas, its ugliness—every instinct told me to do an about face and head back to Rio’s inviting beauty. But for just one week, I told myself, I can stand almost anything.

Sao Paulo is an incredibly important city here in Brazil. As the commercial hub of the country’s booming economy, Sampa, as the locals call it, has become the destination for waves of internal immigrants. Those fleeing rural poverty and displacement in search of better lives have settled on the outskirts of the city by the millions, arriving faster than the city’s infrastructure can manage. As a result of this rapid growth, the city feels as though it is continuously oozing out from its posh central neighborhoods towards its third-world dilapidated communities. The favelas funnel labor into the city center to keep the urban gears oiled and industry booming.

Looking for some sense of context and connection, I had arranged to meet with representatives of Slow Food Sao Paulo the morning alter arriving. After a leisurely morning breakfast in the Parque Agua Branca—a park steeped in agricultural history and now the home of one of the city’s oldest organic farmers markets—I hopped into the car of one of my hosts and we set out to see the “other” Sao Paulo.

After winding our way through the choking traffic for over an hour, we finally arrived to pick up our tourguide for the day, Hans Dieter Temp. Hans is the founder and administrador of Cidades Sem Fome (Cities Without Hunger), an NGO that seeks to create jobs and improve nutrition in impoverished communities through small- and medium-scale agriculture projects. Together, we drove deep into Zone Leste, the eastern part of Sao Paulo, notorious for its crime and poverty. First stop, an urban farmstand. I had struck gold.

Within minutes of meeting Hans, I knew I had found a kindred spirit. Our methodologies and our philosophies jived so well and so immediately, it was like I was talking through a mirror. Since 2004—the organization’s official start—Hans and community members have built 21 urban gardens and farms and have helped to set up dozens of farmstands. All practices completely organic with very little mechanical assistance. Gardeners from the community train one another to minimize the need for top-down assistance, which serves to both build community capacity and to minimize the need for paid staff. Gardeners harvest and sell their produce locally, some directly across the street from the gardens, some a few miles away (as the larger sites and greenhouses are located on the very edge of Sao Paulo proper). All produce is priced at a rate that favela residents can afford, and gardeners make a good living wage from hawking their produce. Ripple effects? Empowering women, improving childhood nutrition, job-training, carbon sequestration (Sao Paulo struggles with horrific air pollution, and sustainable agriculture practices help to remove carbon from the air and carbon to the soil), improved community cohesion, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and on. These are the reasons why I work in urban agriculture, and at Cidades Sem Fome, all the pieces are so finely tuned, so perfectly executed, that these types of social projects are obviously worthwhile. If only we could get all of our U.S. leaders down here to see, our public health, urban planning, nutrition and agriculture strategies might look very different.

As we passed the afternoon, I began to reflect on my experience in Rio. For every dysfunction in the horta communitaria near Sata Teresa, Cidades Sem Fome has a successful model to demonstrate. And yet, Hans runs his organization with a light hand an indescribable humility. Despite his expert training (Hans grew up on a diversified farm in Matto Grosso do Sul and studied technical agronomy in Germany), part of Hans’s mission is to be needed as little as possible. He sees his role as administrative and supportive—fundraising, helping design new spaces and build necessary infrastructure for organizational purposes, and publicity. His role in the actual gardening is minimal, as community members take over quickly. After only five years in operation, Hans has over 600 gardeners working with him. The numbers have swelled fast, and he has no interest in slowing down. Although he wishes the press would give his project some attention, it’s because he’s desperate to attract more funding and land opportunities, not because he’s seeking glory or personal recognition. He loves agriculture and the communities in which he works, and for him, that seems to create a sense of well-being that I have witnessed in few non-profit activists.

As we sat in his kitchen sipping juice (Hans lives with his wife, young son, and father-in-law in one of the communities in which he works), Hans and I mulled over the possibility for an exchange program. He was excited about the prospect of traveling with his work, assisting organizations working to scale-up urban agriculture initiatives and also to learn from other model sites doing similar work using different techniques. He seems at once an eternal student and a wise teacher, completely willing to share his skills and knowledge to any interested party, but equally accepting of the fact that there is always more to learn.

After strong hugs and promises to make plans to work together, we rode back through Sao Paulo. As I stared out the window at the favelas stretched out before me, I was comforted to think that, even in a city that feels so hostile, there is always a teacher, a lesson, a friend to be found. As I’ve said again and again, agriculture is a universal language, one that breaks down barriers and deters ignorance and fear. This, I reminded myself, is why I am here.

February 17, 2010: I crawled out of bed in a stupor this morning. The electricity blew out in my shared room last night, and by 8 o’clock, the bedroom—usually just tolerable enough to sleep in with the fan constantly whirring overhead–had turned into a sweatbox. I stumbled towards the kitchen for coffee and fruit. It wasn’t until I sat down and took my first sip that I realized it was finally over: Carnaval.

I peered over the high gate into the blessedly quiet streets. The wreckage remains, despite efforts late last night to begin to erase all traces of the City’s final summer fling. Confetti was stuck in the crevices between the cobblestones, beer cans strewn about, the last of the street vendors packing up their carts for the long treks back to the favelas.

Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro is the stuff of legends. Samba dancers decked out in elaborate headdresses and barely-there sequined bikinis, drunken revelry, free love. But after days of being confronted with constant noise, sweat, and groping (in the midst of our continuous heat wave, no less) around every corner, I’ve been waiting for this morning. A return to some semblance of normalcy.

I had actually been tolerating the chaos quite well for the first few days. Not coincidentally, those days coincided with a slight drop in temperature. I danced through the streets, kissed strangers (just imagine St. Patty’s day in Boston… and everyone’s Irish…for five days straight), faked the words to songs and chants I don’t know, packed myself into crowded metro cars for the ride to Ipanema’s epic blocos (street parties), and reaped the benefits of Rio’s lack of open container laws with caipirinhas concocted and consumed in the open air. But the partier in me wilted fast, and my frustration with the total shutdown of the city bubbled up quickly. The final straw came yesterday, Tuesday, when my favorite street market was canceled for the holiday. And so I spent the last day of Carnaval sulking, wandering up into the quieter reaches of my neighborhood in search of peace, waiting it out.

Despite my grumblings (and very real bitterness that Carnaval got in between my weekly produce grab and me), if there is one thing I’ll miss most about this city, it is the way virtually all life seems to be lived on the street. And although Carnaval is certainly a larger-than-life example, the way in which Cariocas interact with one another and with their food in public spaces—the way every meal, every beer, ever outing the beach can become a party—has become a point of admiration. When compared with the constant rush of New York and many first-world cities, and the way in which their cultures treat food as a necessary interruption to the mad dash of daily life (and is thus often consumed as fast as possible with as little effort as possible), the Cariocas’ attitude towards their food—its purchase, preparation, and consumption—has come as a welcome change.

Although I’m certainly aware that any food culture is the result of a complex history and set of norms, I can’t help but believe that part of the reason Rio has such a hedonistic attitude towards its food is its incredible beauty and variety. Since stumbling upon the enormous market at Catete station during a restless walk my third day here, I have been blocking off half a day each Tuesday for the market. Wandering through the stalls is, to me, as exciting and beautiful as Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, a Picasso canvas viewed for the first time, the Notre Dame cathedral. I feel giddy each time I step into a new food market, but none has ever been so stimulating, so strange, as Brazil’s. Mounds of produce both familiar and foreign, more types of peppers than I can count, cheese, honey, fresh shredded coconut, and piles of manioc meal greet me with each visit. The mingling scent of limp leaves crushed underfoot, the ice melting off from the fish stall, Minas cheese on an open grill.

The market is where I go to feel in my element, peppering vendors and other shoppers with questions about names, origins, and preparations of various foods. Nowhere have I had more opportunity to practice my Portuguese and also found myself more frustrated; if only I could ask the capsicum vendor to discern for me the heat levels of his many chilies, or engage the jaca fruit man in a conversation about where he harvests the enormous fruit (does he carry it out of Tijuca National Park, as I’ve seen so many do as I hike up to swim in the waterfalls there?) and why he has a folding table on the outskirts of the market rather than a proper stall in the square.

I shoulder my way through the crowds, but with no sense of hurry, often stuck for long stretches of time between old women squeezing and smelling produce, leaving their shopping carts in the middle of the already-tight pathways. I bargain. I taste. I buy too much to carry.

By high noon, I am always exhausted, and it is time to plant myself in the shade of the pastel tent and replenish my energy stores. Pasteis (fried wontons filled with all manner of savory concoctions) are something of a religion in Brazil, and accompanied by a cup of freshly pressed caldo (sugarcane juice), they provide the perfect snack for marketers in need of a break before the ordeal of getting their purchases home. The pastel vendors have quickly become friends, and are endlessly patient with me as I try to engage them in small-talk, posing for pictures, gleeful when I tell them how I wait each week for this hour of rest and people watching as I gulp cup after cup of their abrosial caldo. I always return home exhausted but absolutely content, already dreaming of how I’ll prepare my week’s bounty.

As the end of my stay in Rio draws near, I find myself speculating about how drastically different this city will be if and when I visit some years from now. In light of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, Rio’s mayor is instituting a series of policies to crack down on open air food vendors, an entire economy in and of itself and, as far as I can tell, the source of many of the Cariocas’ calories. Green coconuts can no longer be sold directly on the sands of the beach. Popcorn, grilled meats, and cut fruit area among the foods on the watch-list. An entire culture is being systematically dismantled (or at least an attempt is being made to do so) in order to promote Rio’s image as a first-world city. It seems to me this is as much sacrilege as banning Carnaval from the streets. Attempting to relegate Rio’s life to contained spaces, to sterilize, homogenize, “modernize”, isolate. At what cost? And to whose benefit?

As I anticipate my final market day next week, before I head on to Sao Paulo, I find myself struck, suddenly, but my first real wave of “saudade”; a preemptive nostalgia and yearning for the food culture that exists here, those distinct food cultures I have experienced elsewhere, and all those that may soon be lost.

This is the first in a series of posts from our new Foodshed Nomad column.

January 29, 2010
It’s difficult to explain, and I’m certainly aware that I’m still in a phase of first impressions rather than any sort of intimate. But in short, I find this city absolutely magnificent. There’s a phrase in Brazilian Portuguese that has no literal translation: saudade. It connotes a sense of longing, a deep yearning and nostalgia for a person or place, and is often used when expressing your love for something or someone while you are still with it or them (perhaps the sentiment Toni Morrison was trying to express when she wrote, “It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody before you leave them” in her book Sula). I’ve been here just a week, but it already feels like much longer. Rio’s languorous pace draws you in very quickly, and running around Brooklyn packing up and saying goodbyes already seems months behind me. One of my new friends and I were just discussing the intoxication that comes from being in Rio, the sense that you are living in Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, a place with no life or time outside its limits. Here we all move as one, and even those of us who move at the quickest pace in our outside lives are forced to give up the hurry here. It is as giving in to love.

The city is as full of sighs of revelry and pleasure as it is with bustle and pain. I find myself at times reminded of other places to which I’ve traveled — the chaos of Durban, the transplanted European elegance of Cape Town, the poverty and remarkable presence of the sprawling South African townships, the startling friendliness of Detroit, the multiculturalism of New York, the cosmopolitan beach neighborhoods and slow pace of Montevideo, the sultry street life and music of San Telmo in Buenos Aires, the heat of Belize, and the bohemian beauty of Montmartre in Paris.

But social inequity rules here—pickpocketing is commonplace and the homeless are too numerous to count. The standard police force works in tandem with the druglords, pocketing bribes to stay quiet and leave the traffickers to their business. And certainly, conflicts do arise. The sound of gunshots from the hills is common, as is the passing of police helicopters overhead. But unlike my experience in South Africa, violence isn’t random here. The wars are between the traffickers and those who engage with them—customers, suppliers, police, corrupt businessfolk. And as frightening and real as it is, life goes on, peacefully for the most part. The media has sensationalized Rio (as it has sensationalized so many places) to a point of ridiculous paranoia. One musn’t walk through the streets here with fear. The best protection, in fact, is to adopt the pace of the Cariocas—moving at a honeyed speed, filled with sweetness, passion, joy, and no sense of urgency at all; keeping your wits about you is certainly necessary, but carrying your terror on your sleeve only seems to make you more of a target of petty crime.

The scene is set: this is Rio. As usual when I arrive in a new place, I first set myself to orienting myself by food. By the afternoon of my first day in Rio, I knew I would be well fed. Small shops scattered all about the city vend all the basics, but alongside the streets and in the tangled jungle yards are where the real treasure troves lie. Mounds of fresh produce sold on the sidewalk, trees dripping with jeweled fruit in the yards, beautiful fish, green coconuts served with a straw for their nourishing water and sweet meat, juice stands on every corner, salgados (savory snacks) and sweets in carts everywhere. Bliss.

At first, adjusting to the heat, I wondered whether I would be able to take advantage of this bounty. My inclination was to go on an immediate spree and gorge myself. But in temperatures this high, you have to pace yourself. The Cariocas snack all day long — a mango or some jaca (jackfruit) here, a salgado or two there, juice and coconut water as frequently as possible, acai as an afternoon snack, and light grazing to accompany cold beers or caipirinhas through the long sultry nights of samba and revelry. This is true, as far as I can tell, across socio-economic lines. Almost everyone eats like this. The downtown elite hustle from their air conditioned offices to air conditioned restaurants for large platos executivos (set lunches) during the week while the majority of the city swelters, but for the most part, the Cariocas eat in bits all the day long, savoring the fruits of Brazil’s diverse cultures and climates and replenishing their energy stores to stay standing in the sticky heat.

And so I have quickly learned to do as the locals do. A banana and mango with my morning coffee, a suck of sugar cane in the mid-morning garden sun, a salgado or a cake and juice to carry me through until the sun finally sets and it’s cool enough for a small hot meal. Eating is as much as source of pleasure as samba, love, and the beaches here. And to appreciate it fully, this busy-bee New Yorker is getting a lesson in slowing down.

This is the first in series of posts about food systems issues in and around Brazil. Sara will contribute to a new column called The Foodshed Nomad. Look for her updates regularly.

I’m on the floor of my father’s Manhattan apartment, surrounded by luggage, paperwork, books and a sprawl of clothes and toiletries. It is a mere two days from my departure for Brazil, and it feels like there are mountains of tasks to complete before I get on the plane. Sitting here, pounding away at my keyboard, catching up on emails and typing up loose ends, I finally forced myself to find a moment to write.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sara Franklin. I have worked in food systems for several years now in a variety of capacities— I have studied nutrition and agriculture; I have farmed; I have worked for anti-hunger organizations dealing with a lack of healthy, accessible food in urban areas; I have worked to build capacity among community-based groups across the U.S. using agriculture as a tool of empowerment to work towards eliminating hunger and poverty; I have been a restaurant critic, a freelance writer, and consultant for various organizations; and I have built gardens in cities and the countryside. But what has, perhaps, taught me most about food systems issues and their pervasiveness is travel. In visiting farmers and activist groups working in food and agriculture in the U.S. and abroad, I have learned that the issues related to food systems are a universal language. Food systems issues cut across cultures and create common ground, allowing space for us to learn from one another; issues of sustainability, hunger, wages, labor conditions, food deserts, malnutrition, livability in urban areas, the deterioration of rural communities… the list goes on and on. Although these conversations may look different from location to location, the themes remain the same. Those who engage with these issues share a common passion for their work, a dedication to finding lasting solutions to societal issues, using the lenses of food and agriculture as their frames of reference.

I’ve traveled extensively in recent years, yet much of my time has been based in the U.S. Northeast. Now for nearly three months this winter, I will live, work, and travel in Brazil.

My reasons for going are many—Brazil’s agricultural history, its tremendous urban migration, heated battles over land use and displacement, and enormous social inequities are just a few of the compelling reasons I have chomped at the bit to explore this enormous country. And, of course, an interest of any avid traveler: the food.

I have ideas and tentative itineraries for the months ahead, but of course, the best laid plans… What I do know is that for the first half of my trip, I will be based in Rio de Janeiro, the Marvelous City. There, I’ve hooked up with an organization that builds and maintains food security gardens and teaches cooking and nutrition education in low-income communities. Getting my hands back in the soil has been on my mind more or less constantly since I stopped farming in the fall of 2007 to move to Brooklyn for work, and I can’t think of a more exciting way to re-enter the world of agriculture than in a foreign (to me) cultural context. New techniques and crops await me, and I’m looking forward to sharing my own skills and knowledge with my Brazilian counterparts.

So stay tuned! I can’t wait to start writing from the road. Next stop: Rio.