Small miracles

With help from Canadian farmers, Organic food growers in Brazil work together to improve their lives and renew the Earth

By Clarice Garvey, O.L.M.
Summer 2004

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Like an answer to prayer, the rains began in early January this year. The farmers were delighted. The fields, true to the words of the Psalmist, were longing for this blessing from the heavens. Families took to the fields, carrying the seeds so carefully saved from last year's harvest, sure of the promise that our Earth would once again bring forth her miracle of new life.

Sr. Clarice Garvey with one of the 400 families camped on the roadside of a highway in the municipality of Chorozinha in the Brazilian State of Ceará since last November. They await the government's decision on their request for ownership of 12,000 hectares of land unused by the present owner. While they wait, the families must remain near the land, returning to the fields each day to tend their crops. By law they are permitted to keep 85% of the yield. During the heavy rains that came this year and the torrid sun blazing down on the thick black plastic tents they call home, the people have not complained about the government's delay, and have maintained a spirit of community, hope and peace.

Usually during these weeks of rain there would be little chance of getting people out to a meeting. The opportunity to plant is too precious to lose. However by mid February, with the forecast of a long rainy season, we were able to hold the fourth annual meeting of organic growers. This meeting has rotated through three Brazilian states and returned to Ceará this year.

These gatherings begin with the people in each group sharing their story. They share their experiences of planting, harvesting and selling their organic produce. They share the changes that have come about since they stopped using chemical insecticides and fertilizers. They tell how their children are healthier and have a greater capacity to learn. They tell how the birds that had fled in fear of their lives, have returned to share the healthy seeds and grains in the fields. They tell how planting, harvesting and caring for the Earth have become a family project. They tell of small miracles.

Specific to Ceará is the fact that all these communities live on land acquired through their own struggle. They succeeded in gaining the right o ownership and use of this land as a group. In this way, they are the agents as well as the beneficiaries of land reform.

On opening night of the meeting of organic growers, a bus arrived at the door of a house not much larger than the bus itself, spilling out into the darkness some 30 women and men. There were cries of welcome, directions to food and baths, hanging of hammocks for sleeping-sure signs that this was going to be a lively event.

Three local communities were prepared to receive the group. We moved from place to place each day, each community offering the best possible hospitality. We spent the mornings walking the fields, observing and discussing irrigation systems, methods of planting vegetables and fruit trees in the same area, types of seed and soil, advantages of using organic fertilizer and much more. In the afternoons there were open sessions for discussion and questions. Agronomists with nongovernmental organizations, both Brazilian and Canadian, were present to advance the discussion and answer questions. With all of this activity, there was still time for local entertainment in the evenings.

Another important outcome of these meetings was the friendships that developed among the participants. This happened in the line up for food or baths, or while munching on a caju (cashew apple) as they walked the fields, or in those moments when all had fallen dead tired into their hammocks strung side by side. Here, at the close of the day, conversations began easily and ended with the recognition that one had met a companion who shared the same dream, the same love for land and life, and a great sense of gratitude.

This yearly meeting is sponsored by S.H.A.R.E. (Sending Help And Resources Everywhere:
1-888-337-4273; www.shareagfoundation.org. A Canadian foundation, SHARE helps organic food growers around the world improve the quality and quantity of their produce. Bob Thomas and Kevin Mitchell represented SHARE and were remembered here as "our friends from Canada." This gathering was no empire-building group. Rather, it was a community of friends: professional agronomists and farmers with minimal schooling, listening and exchanging knowledge gleaned from their own experience.

Yet another sign of hope for these farmers, and for Brazil, was the active presence of representatives from local government agencies. This indicates a new respect for the efforts and capacity of ordinary people to bring about change in their economic and social structures, thereby improving their lives and the lives of others.

Working with the Land Pastoral Team, accompanying Brazilian farmers in their struggle for land and livelihood, keeps me in touch with a very basic mystery of life: "unless the seed die." But the seed does die after being buried in the living earth. New life begins and rises and the cycle continues. Praise to our loving Creator.

In the 1970s, the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops founded the Pastoral Land Commission, a prophetic, ecumenical and loving response to the people's need for land and justice. Most of Brazil's agricultural land is in the hands of a few wealthy landowners. For rural peoples, lack of access to land results in poverty, hunger and disease, and a continuing exodus to urban centres often to find themselves in even more dire conditions. The Pastoral Land Commission established land pastoral teams and a human rights pastoral team in every diocese in Brazil. They are dedicated to securing with rural people their right to land, documenting human rights violations and assisting the nearly five million landless families in their struggle for land rights.

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