As Sementes

To me, the conception of agroecology isn't just about looking and seeing a forest standing, "or a river with no pollution, or the air with no pollution. " It is also about that, "but it's also about a whole relation that we have to build with nature. " Between men, women and nature.

We mix fruits with greens, "put a coffee plant within the orange trees, or in the middle of the banana trees. " "We make a fence and inside it there are oranges, guavas," and the chicken are walking below them. "So it is like this, I think it's a good mix and I see that as agroecology.

" Because sometimes to define agroecology. . .

"I think it's easier to define agroecology living it than to describe it" than to describe it with pretty words, maybe. "Since when we got this land here in '98," "we have never burned, never threw poison, never put chemical fertilizers into the land. " We know that the best way to work is with the agroecological system.

"I think agroecology became that to me," became thinking about the future, "a future with no global warming, a future thinking in everything you can imagine nature to be. " The land, nature and women, we can identify with, "we produce life and nature, the land, all of the diversity also produces life. " "So we have a very close identity, something in common.

" "We had a lot of frogs in our garden, and this is one example that I'm giving you. " Women that are afraid of frogs, """Lets take the frogs outside. """ "It all started because of an unbalance, where crickets started to eat the leaves of the beetroots.

" "I mean, it took out a natural predator. " "Agroecology gives you this look," "this care with what's missing, with what is causing such unbalances. " "Then if you can make it, if you can give this look to your land," "see what is out of place.

If you understand the need," you get something in return. "Then I think that this mindset here in this settlement," "is what makes that people don't use poison. " We live in a bioma called caatinga We are here in Rio Grande do Norte, in Mossoró, in a settlement in the rural area.

When the settlement first began we had assemblies, the very first meetings to discuss the settlement. "How the proposal was going to be. " "Women barely participated in the assemblies.

Because all those went there were the husbans," "the men are so called owners of the land, because they officially did own them. " We were then capacitated by "an organization that worked solely with women. " "I think this encounter may have originated back in 1985," "when we created the group ''Women Decided to Win''," here in the settlement.

"That was when we started to understand our rights and our duties. " When the group ''Decided to Win'' opted to work with bees "was exactly because we already work in an activity that needed a lot of water," "which was greenery. We needed something that would focus the semiarid," "so that, when the greenery had troubles with water we could have an alternative to sustain ourselves.

" "I can say that my bees," "bees that fly higher than 500 meters, they won't find a single bit of poison here" in this property of Mulunguzinho "because I know that the farmers here don't put poison in their lands. " I can say that today. "And then we have marrow, and honey candy" "and honey itself that we sell in the Xique Xique network, and it's through that network," through direct consumers "and through some other restaurants that we have contact" "and we also sell it to the public policies of PAA or PNAE.

" "So today the main sustaining pilar, of our network," "is agroecology, the caring economy and feminism. " "The network drinks a lot from the fruits of organized women," "and that is why he issue of feminism is permanently within the Xique Xique network. " And us from the women's movement, "our organization works so that women go to the public world.

" "That was taken away from us a long time ago. It's historical. " "We want to share the private world with our husbands, with our children," "because the home, the children, everything we make is a responsibility of all of us," and not just the women, "especially when it comes to our children's education.

" Here we are in the town of Ibiaça. The name of our community is São Francisco. "The town of Ibiaça is localized the northern part of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

" "Since the lands here are mostly flat, the agrobusiness took over. " "The big ones took control of the lands. " "The truth is that we have very few small producers here.

" "So here we are tight together with the agrobusiness around us," but we are resisting. "It's not a big property that we have," "but we've been harrassed to sell it before. " "We plant corn and black beans.

" We produce milk. "We have a milk production, because it garantees our income. " The milk we produce here is ecological.

"We also treat them with homeopatic medicines. " It's all natural. So then we have the garden, where all the vegetables and the legumes that we eat are planted, "including some things that we sell to the neighborhood.

" "There's little bit of selling of those things. " "We came a long time ago inside the movement's struggles," organizing base groups, "and not just thinking about our rights, but thinking also in a way of getting women" some extra income. We make sweet bread, pizza, pasta, cookies, "torteli, cakes, pasteries but that one is only on request.

" "Since the beginning we started with our feet on the ground. " "We don't make debts that we can't pay, even if we make little money," that’s it. "Actually, this bread is part of this commercialization that we're building" "inside the peasants' program, in an organization" by the PNAE, a program for school meals.

"So this bread here we'll reach, together with other goods," "tomorrow to a school and kids will eat this bread. " "The cooperative is having a very important role for us. " It has opened the doors "for us to be able to give the first steps" when it comes to commercialization.

The cooperative has its demands, "the requests that come from schools" "And then there's this whole legal question of the school meals' law," where you must have formal gorups, in this case associations, cooperatives "that can make this delivery, of the school lunches. " "Living here in the slash, and yes we say slash, is very good" "because we have this freedom of working. " "Just like so many times people prefer to go work in the city.

" "But then every single day you have to be there," "Here in the slash we get to manage our time" "according to ourselves, with the nature's weater, with the pace of God. " "If today is too hot and we can't garden, I can not garden today. " "Then I go do some home chores, for example, and then tomorrow I'll work in the garden.

" "If I can't plant letucce today because it's too hot, I wait until it rains, I wait until the weather changes. " I can do that. "If I were to be working in a company, with a boss," "it can rain, the sun can shine, whatever it is but I would have to go to work," "even with difficulties to get to work, I would have to go anyway.

" But not here. Here is very peaceful, "in any other workplace you get stressful," "but not here. .

. it is sort of a therapy. " "My father-in-law already lived here with my husband.

" "What we did was build another house for us to take care of our family" "There lives my father-in-law, we live in this house" "and my brother-in-law in that other one. " "So it's us, three families, in this environment," that work in this property. "I started be involved with the Church activities.

" "The church promoted courses, things like that. " "Then from the church I got involved with the union of rural workers. " "Then a Father came to the congregation of Acaiaca, and he was more dynamic," and I am from Acaiaca.

This Father started called people "to form better leadership, to participate in the courses, to talk about politics. " "So it worked a lot on issues focused on reality. " "I had already met Cirley, who today is my husband.

" I met him since the Church. "I was a leader and so was he. " "Before lunch we have to help our children" with their school work.

"Then, comes the rush of making lunch" "because it has t o be ready by 10:30," "and they have to be eating right them. " "So they have to change clothes and leave really fast. " "Generally we like our house chores, but no one likes to stay only at home," we like working in nature better, "to go outside our homes, to have that sort of contact.

" It's independence. "The work in the fields brings independence to us. " "We spoke a lot of women's issues, agroecology," gender, division of chores, "income problems.

Income became a very strong and important topic in our discussions. " "I'm talking here about our challenges," "but I think it has to go to the group as well," "because when is goes to the group we get stronger," "we start demaniding to our municipality, to the state and national level. " "We have a lot of partners that have strength" and willpower "but they face too many barriers," in a day-to-day basis, like having too many children.

Illiteracy has a very high rate. "The family farmers, especially the women, barely any knows how to write and read" "but it worries me a lot, especially when it's time to take a decision. " 'I'm going to do this'' "or ''we're going to do that'' and then there's a superior that says" ''No, you're not going to do that''.

"And that superior is most times the husband. " "I used to live in the land of my grandparents. " Today it is a quilombola land.

"But that land was passed down, generation by generation," "The whole family lived in that land. It had about 10 hectares. " When the union struggle begin "we started to understand that we needed to ocuppy those lands," "because they were in the hand of one single person.

" "Then the very same people that lived in the union struggle" "understood that I had to leave that land," "because it wasn't productive anymore. " "Being able to live in the land reform area," "I would also be able to contribute to t he other seated people of the settlement. " "In '98 I came here with this mission" "of working with the agorecological system along the families from the area," "and also being able to give my contribution" "to this whole issue of fighting for the possession of the land.

" "Here we are in a individual family area. " I got this one in '99. "We are here in a parcel where we work, what we call agroecological system.

" "When we started working, as a family, in this activity," "lots of people told us that we were crazy" "and that we were going to starve to death. " "But, honestly, I can say with all conviction:" "most of our income comes exactly" "from this part of the land, parts that are diversified," "where we manage differently, that allow us to go to farmer's markets," "and then we can get a minimum wage per month just from the farmer's market. " I cut the banana haulm.

Eu corto a palha de bananeira. Vou tirando a medida para fazer a pamonha, o beju de folha e a preparação dos produtos da mandioca para comercialização na feira livre de Camamu. "We take it as we need it" "to make ""pamonha""" "and ""beju de folha""," "and for the preparation of the manioca products" for commercialization for for the farmer's market of Camamu.

"But you know that today who identifies the most with agroecology are women," "even if it's not shown in research. " "Why? Because it's around our homes.

" What does agroecology do? "It makes that people also can't see. " "Because it brings the fruit, the vegetable," it brings some extra money, that makes all this story of rotation, the story of diversity.

"And that's why it enchants women first. " This is my garden. "We'll start seeing what I make by not spending.

" "If I were to get this in a market outside," "I would be spending and wouldn't be bringing home a quality product. " "I wouldn't know exactly where this product came from. " "But here, I know the source of my product," what I put in it to grow and "exactly what we are eating.

" "This one right here is called Chinese cabagge. " A few of them are slower, starting just now. "This one is already good to be sold" "both for eating and for selling.

" "These cabagges are going for school meals. " "This cabagge is already in its final stage. " "We give them to the chicken and they put range eggs.

" We believe that "there has to be diversity inside the property," "and inside our own lives as well. " "Our supermarket is actually all around our house:" "we just have to go there and harvest what we want. " We get really surprised by "the amount of savings we manage to gather," "and with how much we get here," "in our backyards or in a garden.

" "No one realized what we were bringing inside the house. " "But we could see the difference" "in having a papaya to give to my child," "in having a diversity of vegetables in my table," "in being able to get some money that could buy my son" "a pair of slippers, or a notebook for school. " But in the eyes of people: """those women spend the day dying out of so much work" "without getting anything in return.

""" This one is maniva. "It's the seed to make manioc. " "Here, when it's time to take it to the soil," "we'll cut a piece of around 20 centimeters" "and then make sort of a crib in the soil to plant it.

" "And then we'll leave a couple of centimeters of it outside. " "And then in a couple of years ago," we started developing a project "of recovery and multiplication of native seeds. " "We already had that practice of keeping our own seeds," "being it in a can, in a bottle.

. . " We already reused those seeds.

"Because we have our own seeds, because we select it ourselves," "we don't depend on the market," on having to buy seeds everytime. It is been working out as well, "we've been continuing and managed to multiply" "what is for us also important," "not to loose that contact with the seed," "otherwise we will loose ourselves as well," "and then will come a point where we won't have our seeds," our very own seeds. This area here is a specific area "of the women from the Dandara dos Palmares settlement.

" It's an area of 4 hectares. "To get all of this land was a big challenge. " "In the beginning it was 20 women, with the intent of building 20 families," "so that we could be working together with the issue of malnutrition," "because we had a lot of maltnutrition here.

" There were 70 families with "a lot of children under weight. " To plant it we need this care in the beginning, "like when we take care of any other living being. " When we call it a ''pit'', "we give it such a heavy name," "so we call it a ''nest'', because we are putting in a plant.

" When we started working women had a situation. "When a woman came to work, her husband would say:" "“either she stays at home, or she has to take her children with her”. " "So, she had to bring the children with her to work.

" Today this situation has changed, "because she has another look to that. " "She can go to the market alone, to sell her production. " "She can get her own money," "and she can manage the money she got.

" "She got autonomy into the family. " "Especially for feel free to discuss whit her husband," and with their children. "When we do this kind of work" "we also do something about awareness.

" "We have to discuss with husband and children" and also with the community "about the way we are working. " In all of my walking around, "it's not always that we get the support from our children. " "And my daughters, they don't support me a lot in my struggle.

" "But the thing is that they're also very independent. " Then sometimes I tell them, "You're only like this - independent - because I didn't stay at home doing it all for you. " "Once in a while she comes up complaining that I was out a lot and she had to stay at home.

" "For instance, when my older daughter got her first period and I wasn't at home. " This was a stain for her, and it hurts her. "But it wasn't news to her.

She knew. " "We had already talked about it. " "I think this conflict of being a mother" "is in every woman, being her a feminist or not," "you have to leave your kid in order to be able to work outside even for your own need," or for the struggle.

"And in the movement we think the same way. " "So it's way easier for women to attend them, to go to a meeting where they learn how to cook," "make some craftwork or whatever. " "They're going to have their husbands support for it.

" "But they go there and they come back with the same mindset, with the same ideas. " Their consciousness doesn't change. "And then the women's movement has that other side:" "Who goes to it comes back different.

" "We come back thinking differently. " So it's hard to attend the meetings. Your family doesn't let you go, "neither your husband or your mother-in-law," "because they say your child's life will get complicated if you do.

" "I believe that the movement doesn't only discuss questions of women," "but also of an economy of solidarity, it discusses agroecology. It puts in focus the whole social issue," "not just the rights and health of women. " We are in a movement, the Women's World March, "that talks about the relation of local space to global space," of how politics makes a difference in our lives.

"I think we need to be a little more ahead in the planning of our production. " "Even we, the farmers, need to organize ourselves better. " "There are school who are already sending requests way ahead.

" "There are schools that managed to put like, a cronogram for the whole year. " That makes things a lot easier. "I already have water that is for consumption," "and now I've received this second kind of water that is for production.

" "I am going to irrigate with microsprinklers and with dripping" "so that the production here in this backyard" "can have some diversity. I want to have vegetables," I want to have fruits. "I want to make it so that this diversity happens right here, in this garden.

" "It is my dream that we have a variety of plants" "and fruits here, that we can eat ourselves and sell the surplus. " "Here we are in the construction site of the agrobusiness ''Farmer's Delights''," "which is the name of our agrobusiness. " "The creators of this idea were women," us women, "in this case, the women from the Movimento de Mulheres Camponesas.

" We believe that women's autonomy "will be built also from this. " "So they can have an income within the family. " An income of their own, that they can manage, "from the production to the sale of it," to commercialization.

"The other seated people from here," "I can see they have a really tough time" "because they don't diversify their land. " "When we work in an area that doesn't have that diversification," "it comes to a point where we'll have to work outside to be able to afford their cost of living. " "Talking about agroecology comes to the encounter of it all," making us reflect "and think about what we can do to change those relations.

" "What needs to happen is a cultural change," "because culture is something that one can build," "And what's been constructed is a whole culture of exploration. " "Of exploring women, the land and nature. " "Taking it all out, sucking every last bit.

Everything has to be turned into profit. " "And with women it happens the same way," because we've supported this "sexist, capitalist model that is out there. " "We've given it the support it needed.

" "We make the sons to work in the fields, to be a cheap workforce. " We raised our children for that. "Because we were taught to teach our children to obey," to accept all kinds of domination.

"So, we believe that it's all up to us to change that. " "We had to first change within ourselves this conception of obidience," "which is so intertwined inside of us that was built there, inside of us. " "So we have to deconstruct this whole culture.

" "And that can take generations, right?