Brazil: Urban farming provides seeds of hope to residents of Rio’s favelas
“Healthy food is often reserved to the elite”
Text by Olivia Bizot
The Observers
July 27, 2022
Excerpt:
In one of Rio’s working-class neighbourhoods, known as favelas, residents have been cultivating Latin America’s largest urban garden. The ‘Horta de Manguinhos’ currently feeds around 800 families a month with a produce that is pesticide free and affordable. It is one of many iniatives that highlight the capacity of favela residents for resilience, self-reliance and sustainability – even in the face of violence – as our Observer Yuri Lopes Cruz explains.
The Manguinhos garden is part of the Hortas Cariocas project, named after the ‘carioca’ – inhabitants of the city of Rio. The project was launched in 2006 and now includes 56 gardens located in schools and idle land in favelas.
Hortas Cariocas is run and funded by the municipality, but each garden is tended by a group of locals who receive a monthly stipend for their work, as well as heaps of fresh food they can take home at no cost. Half of the produce is donated locally, but the team is then free to commercialise the other half, adding to the stipend they receive.
