The detailed timeline (1960-2022) shows key elements of the global context (modernization of agriculture at a regional scale, Covid-19 crisis, etc.), local initiatives, policy reversals and associated public policy. Initiatives launched by various organizations and networks involved in food activism and agricultural development have played an important role in transforming Porto Alegre’s territorial agri-food system over the last six decades. Indeed, in this territory, national policies and local movements (environmental, agrarian and food) had a great impact on the trajectory of the territorial agri-food system.

Initiatives emanating from organizations of different actors have been numerous over the decades, especially for marketing and re-establishing links between farmers and consumers and organizing producers to respond to national supply policies. From 2003, with the arrival of the Worker’s Party (PT) to the presidency of the country, local administration actors (state and municipal level) went to Brasília to occupy positions on a national scale, causing a destabilization of local networks. An effort to create and recreate initiatives and networks was therefore put in place from the end of the 00s and the end of the 10s

Finally, the recent period has seen more initiatives by the agrarian, food and black movement to deal with accessibility issues aggravated by the Covid-19 crisis.

60s and early 80s:

The trajectory of the modernization of agriculture was very strong from the 1960s on (increase in soy production, etc.). At this time, many agro-ecological movements were articulated, not exactly in POA, but also there, for example Camp (Centro de Assessoria Multiprofissional) was very active in POA already at that time. And also all the other organizations that later originated Rede Ecovida.

In Porto Alegre, in particular, a lot of activities of the Lutzenberger movement were present, the whole environmental movement was very strong. These environmental movements, in the 1980s, will converge with the agrarian movements (intense demonstrations of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST in Portuguese) in the city at the time, historical demands for land reform).

Late 80s, early 90s:

Family farming (AF in Portuguese) actors get together. It was a time of great changes in Brazilian agriculture (globalization, OMC, Mercosur), with several years of drought in Southern Brazil. In 1993 in particular there was a terrible drought that forced smallholders to claim public resources. This event would originate, in 1994, the Program of Valorization of Small Rural Production (PROVAPE in Portuguese) and, in 1995, the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (Pronaf in Portuguese). It is important to point out that, although the AF’s unions were mainly rural areas, much of the political articulation and public demonstrations took place in POA.

In 1989 the environmental movements created Coolmeia Cooperativa Ecológica, which originated the Feira da Redenção, which is the Saturday morning ecological food market (the biggest in POA). Coolmeia established the first Brazilian participative certification system between producers and buyers, a very informal system that worked only inside the fair, but allowed the discussions of Rede Ecovida to be facilitated.

At this moment, national policies had important local effects: several cooperatives were created to operate PAA and the National School Feeding Policy (PNAE in Portuguese), call for projects supported NGOs working in rural extension, and so on. In this period, an informal political agreement was established between the Institute for Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (Emater/RS) and the cooperatives. All institutions could respond to the public calls for technical assistance and rural extension (ATER in Portuguese) for each region, but what would happen in practice is that Emater/RS would always win, given its greater structure to respond to the call’s criteria. The agreement established an informal “regional division” between Emater/RS and the cooperatives to respond to the calls (the POA region was left with Emater/RS).

In the state, the Movement of Small Farmers (MPA) proposed to the Tarso Genro government (PT, governor from 2011 to 2015) the Peasant Plan, which was basically the state subsidizing the purchase of food from the MPA and the agrarian reform settlements to create an articulation especially with urban workers’ unions (companies). These movements begin to bet on the articulation with the urban periphery, mainly via unions (bankers, metalworkers…).

Post-impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (President of the Republic, PT) in 2016:

With the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff (PT) in 2016, Michel Temer (vice president, Brazilian Democratic Movement, MDB) took power. With the establishment of this right-wing government, the people from POA who had gone to Brasilia (cf. Early 2000s) began to leave the

government (crisis of national food policies – PAA, PNAE). On a local scale, the cooperatives start to enter in crisis and the social movements feel lost.

During the pandemic, the communities living in peripheral areas, and especially black women, were the populations that suffered the most, and this all over the world. An articulation begins between groups that were already connected, but had not yet been “forced” to create strategies effectively. They met in CONSEA, in these networks of movements, and suddenly they are forced to accept that “now we are starving, we have to stop talking and do something”:

* Actors in the Coop network helped in the structuring of urban gardens: when sanitary conditions allowed, they started working on Saturdays teaching the population of the periphery how to grow a garden,

* The MST began to distribute food baskets,

* Development of “kitchens of solidarity”, basically driven by the black movement, which occupies some public buildings in POA to cook for people who are going hungry.

The initiatives that already existed (the cooperatives, fairs, agrarian reform store, the recreation of the consumer cooperative (GiraSol recreating Coolmeia)) remain, the biggest novelty is the articulation with the periphery, especially with the black movement. The indigenous movement, in turn, remains a puzzle in the scenario of these movements: they have some actions related to the seeds agenda, to the preservation of seeds, but the strategies are directed inside the villages, the articulation outwards being limited. The “vegan movement” is slowly approaching this debate, not as a vegan movement per se, but because several of the people who compose it also militate/act in the agroecological movement or in favor of agrarian reform.