“Occupy, Resist, and Grow!” I found myself shouting into the human microphone at Occupy Wall Street just the other Sunday. I was translating for Janaina Stronzake, a member of Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement–one of the most prominent peasant agriculture movements in the fight for food sovereignty. The crowd repeated, looking to Janaina and then to the depiction of Brazil on her organization’s flag, connecting the dots from there to Wall Street.

The Landless Workers Movement, or Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), is a social movement based on the right to land and human dignity. Founded in 1985, the movement seeks to connect landless rural families with land not in production. The ultimate goal is agrarian reform: Brazil has alarmingly high levels of land concentration, and a simultaneous abundance of latifúndios–large land holdings–sitting unused, almost forgotten. On paper, the Brazilian government is opposed to the hoarding of potentially productive land, and reserves the right to expropriate land deemed not to be fulfilling its “social function”: creating food and livelihoods for the country’s people. But in practice, the status quo is strong. The MST was founded as a call to action.

The MST operates on the basis of land occupation, which in itself represents a long road. When a group of families seeking land through the MST identifies a space, a camp—“acampamento”—is created. Families occupy the land, cultivate crops, and petition the government for the right to stay. Some groups are luckier than others, winning the right to build their homes in the camp, with the blessing of the landholder. From there, schools, fields, and community are born.

But the fight does not stop there. The MST, allied with the global peasant agriculture movement, Via Campesina, also tackles global issues that affect lives on the ground. Janaina’s recent trip to New York served as localized representation. Not only was the city lucky enough to welcome the MST, but the United Nations was also privileged to hear from the movement, as part of a series of talks on World Food Day and the International Day of Rural Women.

And who better to welcome than a leader from one of the world’s most well-known peasant movements? Serving as a panelist on “Food Security: Global Policy and the Grassroots,” Janaina brought the discussion back to its real roots. “Food security is one step–it’s a tactic,” she said in response to UN and FAO representatives’ narrow support of peasant livelihood. “But food security means nothing unless it exists within a framework of food sovereignty.”

As translator for Janaina, I scanned the room and saw most heads nodding in agreement. The MST’s core message was clear: only food sovereignty represents true freedom. Freedom from dependence on corporate technology, freedom for communities to make their own decisions about their crops, and freedom to feed their families how they choose.

Why so much lip service and so little action on food sovereignty? Well, for starters, addressing food sovereignty is much more difficult than addressing food security because it necessarily and fundamentally implies a pivot in priority and practice, especially in the U.S. Food sovereignty, Janaina told the room, is not defined by exporting production technology developed in the U.S. to family farms in rural Indonesia. It is not defined by consolidating ownership of seeds a la Monsanto and selling them back to the very people who once saved seed themselves. Nor does food sovereignty support Wal-mart buying produce from rural Brazilian farmers and then re-selling it, leading money back to the corporation. Food sovereignty is not about introducing emergency food aid from foreign countries when there are farmers on the ground with product to sell. In short: dependence on foreign technology and external business interests creates more problems than solutions.

Two days after the International Day of Rural Women, we made our way down to Wall Street to observe New York’s own form of occupation and to hear Janaina speak to a crowd at Zuccotti Park. As we carried the MST flag through the square, supporters rushed up to speak to Janaina to discuss the movement and its link to the U.S.

Janaina took the stage. Addressing a crowd of community gardeners and supporters of the occupation, she offered lessons learned from leading the MST. While policy makers may lag behind, revolutionaries create change from within a movement–change sprouts from action. Occupation, she shouted, was a time to grow: to grow education, empowerment, and food community. In solidarity with the movement, in solidarity with occupation, the crowd chanted: “Ocupar, Resistir e Produzir!”

Tom Philpott over at Grist took down the evidence Klein quotes in the piece, and which inspired its title. Klein bit back, addressing the issue again and pointing to the growth of industrial agriculture in China, India, and particularly Brazil as a case in point about the inevitability of growth in agriculture. I thought I would attempt to challenge Klein’s assumptions once again.

Klein’s question about whether any industry has decentralized historically is, at least in the case of farming, a bit silly. Due to increasing climate uncertainty, and waning water and energy resources, the question is not whether industrial agriculture will decentralize, but when and how.

Any farmer will tell you that the weather is her biggest concern, and increasing uncertainty will push farmers by force to diversify instead of putting all their eggs in one basket–that is, unless the government keeps giving incentives in the form of crop insurance for farming monocultures. (As the Farm Bill debate heats up, cutting or changing crop insurance is on the table. But more likely direct payments–what farmers get whether they work the land or not–and conservation programs will be considered for cuts.) Instead, it might be rising oil prices and the changing availability of water, which scientists agree is on the horizon, that could overstep the ability for government intervention, and deliver a death blow to the industrial promise to feed the world.

Furthermore, farming is a unique “industry,” in that what it produces is perishable–and therefore time is of the essence, favoring a local system. Sure we’ve come up with methods of pre-picking fruits and using chemicals to ripen them off the vine, found profits even when jets and trucks are employed to bring these foods to the plate, and have convinced the consumer to except flabby tasting food. But these could be hurdles that get harder to leap.

Efficiency is the keystone in the pro-industrial argument, and yet industrial farms produce a sea of poorly-regulated manure, food that is then excessively processed and packaged, and encourage higher meat consumption by making it cheap. Klein’s argument that big farms can be more sustainable–pointing to the case of Brazil, which I will get to in a moment–ignores the fact that its model is inherently unsustainable.

Meanwhile, research suggests that organic yields are higher over time, and that industrial yields plateau and even peter out. In addition, organic production does things like protect soil micro-organisms that are necessary to get nutrients to plants and protect them from disease–considerations the industrial model doesn’t usually take into account.

So what of Brazil, the case Klein points to, from the Economist:

For them, sustainability is the greatest virtue and is best achieved by encouraging small farms and organic practices. They frown on monocultures and chemical fertilisers. They like agricultural research but loathe genetically modified (GM) plants. They think it is more important for food to be sold on local than on international markets. Brazil’s farms are sustainable, too, thanks to abundant land and water. But they are many times the size even of American ones. Farmers buy inputs and sell crops on a scale that makes sense only if there are world markets for them. And they depend critically on new technology.

Despite the contradiction here–like the fact that it states that the country “loathes” GM seed, and yet has the second-largest land mass planted in them (after the U.S.), and that the country supports small farms, and yet most are many times the size as those in America, and that farmers are buying inputs on a huge scale yet shun chemical fertilizers–Brazil is doing things differently and I’m sure the U.S. could learn something from their model. The article goes on to explain that between 1996 and 2006, the total value of Brazil’s crops increased 365 percent without subsidies. With a wealth of land and water resources, and value placed on agricultural research–notably in breeding grasses, cattle and their own GM soy, and using lime and lab-produced micro-organisms, making fertile previously unproductive soil–we are only seeing the beginning of Brazil’s industrial prowess.

However, the article paints a rosy picture of industrial farming, and fails to mention any of the environmental impacts this kind of high-intensity production is having. As one commenter notes, “The Cerrado – Brazilian Savanah [sic]- is the second largest area of Biodiversity in Brazil. Second only to the Amazon. Hence, large areas are being destroyed in order to produce commodities.” Another commenter alighted on the fact that a higher rate of insects in the tropics and vast monocultures would require higher rates of pesticide use and, “Thus, the critical headwaters of Brazil’s two major rivers become heavily freighted with toxic agricultural chemicals, with “externalized” consequences for river ecology and downstream users.”

On a recent trip there, I saw that on the consumer side, Brazil is also implementing some of the most forward thinking policies to end hunger–including universal school feeding and subsidized restaurants, both of which favor local buying, as well as urban agriculture programs, added markets for local farmers, and even writing into the Brazilian constitution last February that food is a right of citizenship. Further, Brazil has already achieved a Millennium Development Goal to halve hunger ahead of the 2015 deadline. But these actions were taken out of necessity, because when food is placed into a market context it fails to feed everybody equitably.

So are industrial agriculture and organic agriculture just producing different products, and some people will always be “dumb” enough to buy organic food (According to the House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-MN)? Big Ag would have us believe that there is room in the market for everyone. But without the government propping it up with subsidies, the industrial behemoth would not survive. Without abundant energy and water resources, industrial agriculture would be paralyzed.

In fact, it seems the future lies in hybridized farms–diverse production and multi-tasking farmers employing direct-to-consumer sales, eco-tourism, education programs, and even off-farm income to make their work viable.

“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.

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.