The community kitchens organized by the MTST symbolize the resistance that connects the countryside and the city, the river and the forest, in confronting the corporate model of exploitation. “In reality, the Community Kitchen is the consolidation of the entire process that begins with the struggle for land. So, we fight for the land, we conquer the land, whether it’s extractive reserves or rural settlements.”
Fábio Pacheco, a member of ANA, explains that the productive process based on agroecology, using the public policies that the movements also fought for, is the path to building climate justice. “From this process, transforming actions in the territories into mass policies, as shown by the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), we strengthen the protagonism of those who build food supply from the territories and make it clear that the path to development passes through popular construction, territorial sovereignty, and agroecology. With public funding and without false solutions orchestrated by the financial market painted green.”
It’s important to say that the kitchen carries the spirit of the struggle for land, for production, for market access, and for the public policies that support this entire process. When people produce food, they are working from this perspective. They understand the importance of cooking real food. “And when they deliver this to vulnerable populations at these gatherings, they are delivering a piece of the struggle there, packaged in a hot meal, and enjoying the taste of all the achievements of this struggle,” says Pacheco.
The Role of Food at this Summit
Ayala Ferreira, national leader of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), emphasizes that quality food, originating from the territories themselves, is an essential condition for the success of the People’s Summit mobilization.
The leader clarifies that, during the planning of the summit, it became evident that the agenda of climate justice must necessarily encompass food, as it “connects important problems and solutions from the territories.” Ferreira adds, highlighting the political role of the initiative: “Furthermore, nobody goes to the march, to the struggle, to the debates on an empty stomach. In this summit, food has an embedded political project. That’s the great message we want to emphasize.”
The origin of the ingredients: The map of food sovereignty
More than just feeding the registered delegations, the People’s Summit strategically aimed to transform food into a manifesto of resistance and struggle against agribusiness, which doesn’t fill the plates of the Brazilian people. And here everything was carefully thought out, a menu that prioritizes natural, fresh foods directly from the territories of small farmers, those who begin caring for the food from the moment they plant the seed in the ground.
Settlers from the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) are supplying the vegetables and pulp produced by agrarian reform settlements, small farmers from the Popular Peasant Movement (MCP) are supplying the rice, beans, and flour.
Asproc, a cooperative of extractivists from Manaus, is supplying the sustainably managed pirarucu fish. Coconut breakers from the Interstate Movement of Babaçu Coconut Breakers (MQCB) supplied the oil produced in traditional communities that live from the extraction and sale of Babaçu products. And cooperatives of small farmers from São Luiz are supplying the chicken.
In numbers
At the final plenary session (November 14th), Fernando Campos Costa, from the Political Commission of the People’s Summit and coordinator of the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST), highlighted the great contribution of the People’s Summit’s People’s Kitchen, which, according to him, represents an unprecedented logistical and political effort. “The project is serving an impressive total of 160 tons of food over the five days of the event. That’s 21,000 meals a day.”
To sustain this operation, approximately 300 people were mobilized, including volunteers and permanent staff, responsible for processing more than 4 tons of food daily. Everything is fresh, supplied exclusively by family farms and social movements (MST, MCP, MQCB), ensuring that delegations from 62 countries are fed with food that represents struggle and sovereignty.
Photos: Rodrigo Duarte/@rodrigobduartee