What used to be a vacant lot, which offered danger to the residents of the Sapucaias neighborhood, in Contagem, in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, today produces healthy food for dozens of families. Since 2022, 26 women from the community have organized themselves to ask the city hall to use a public area, which was without destination.
On the 3,000-square-meter plot, the residents grow vegetables and cultivate medicinal and ornamental plants. This month, the space will receive material support for the collective construction of a living space, where the community can organize meetings and optimize activities in the garden.
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The school concierge Alva Rodrigues is one of those responsible for the project. She explains that the site has spaces for collective production and individual beds, where each volunteer can plant whatever she prefers. An apartment dweller, Alva has never had closer contact with the land. For her, the experience has been therapeutic.
In addition, with her garden, she is able to supply products to family and friends, feeding up to three families. “Economically speaking it is wonderful. It helps a lot, because everything is very expensive. And we have vegetables harvested at home. All without pesticides, fresh”, she points out.
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The site covers approximately 3,000 square meters and has dozens of individual and collective construction sites / Photo: Janine Moraes/PMC
Public politics
In addition to the land and infrastructure, the Municipality of Contagem also provides training and qualification on agriculture and agroecology to the garden volunteers. Cida Miranda, undersecretary for Food, Nutritional and Agroecology Security, explains that the initiative is the result of the Municipal Program for the Promotion of Urban and Family Agriculture. In addition to Sapucaias, there are 44 other production units in the municipality, including community and institutional gardens and family farming production units.
At Sapucaias, the next step will be to organize a seedling bank. Recently, the volunteers established a partnership with residents of the region to organize a selective collection of organic products in neighboring homes. The garden also established partnerships with the Basic Health Unit and with schools in the neighborhood, in addition to other sectors of public power, such as the Environment Department.
For Cida Miranda, the articulations built in Sapucaias make the initiative exemplary and promising. “There is a very interesting sharing of responsibilities between the government and the components of the production unit”, she evaluates. “That’s why we work with this training methodology for community organization and agroecological techniques, because there is this perspective that the units are becoming autonomous”, she completes.
The city of Contagem also has weekly fairs of products from family farming, located in front of the city hall, Big Shopping and the city’s Court of Justice. There is also an annual fair at Praça da Glória.
Source: BdF Minas Gerais
Editing: Larissa Costa
