Knowledge that feeds

Abstract

In the middle of colored places with guava , potatoes and flowers more than smells of flavors, we discover people. Farmers, with your stories and struggles, are represented on the balconies and tables of the city. Representing the image of each person that daily is dedicated to the cultivation and food production, not just the image of a fair is much more than that. Find the face and choices of other ways of doing agriculture and others ways of feeding.

From the land reform settlements and their struggles for the preservation of native seeds, of university students and their determination to remain in the field and retires tobacco growers willing to clear their land of the poisons of another 30 years of aggressive crops, is made the Flavors of the Earth Fair. Family Agriculture Fair, in the Canguçu City in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, of what happens on every Monday afternoon and brings together about 18 small farmers.

In a wooden pavilion in Downtown city are exposed colonial sweets, bakery products, quick-frozen, flours, beans, vegetables, fruits and flowers in variety according to season. Products that are sold as God´s taste is of course chimarrão, and watermelon ice-cold or a delicious rapadura.

For the permanence and continuation of the green fair, been held little more than a year ago, the small farmers have had and overcome difficulties. The distance of their properties of the Downtown , often last more than two hours of the trip. The consumer demand by products according to aesthetic standards of foods produced with venom.

The fatigue of hands, still for more than 40 years of work, are still facing small farm during the days in a cool, rain and heat weather and the a fair still open. To reconcile agricultural work and the fair with studies, to which access is restricted by distances from universities, internship opportunities, and the difficulty of access to higher public education. Although close, often invisible faces and hands in food choices. People who offer alternative food. Food derived from the relationship of men and women to the land, of his wisdom and actions. Flavors of The Hearth Fair, a point of approximation between the countryside and the city, between the crop and the food, between care and taste. Of farmers and agriculturists and their beans, strawberries and biscuits.

This photo essay is part of research agenda “Knowledge and tastes of the agricultural colony”, developed in the framework of the Group of the Studies and Researches in Food an Culture (GEPAC) and linked to the Bachelor’s and the Postgraduate Program In Anthropology of Federal University of Pelotas.

Credits:

Author: Larissa Fonseca

Photographs: Larissa Fonseca

Direction: Larissa Fonseca

Research Coordination: Renata Menasche

Image Editing: Larissa Fonseca e Hamilton Bittencourt

Image Consulting: Claudia Turra Magni.