Cornucopia I

"Das ist doch Brauch in aller Welt:
auf wessen Grund der Apfel fällt, dem ist er zu eigen."
(Die Kluge, Carl Orff)

"We are the best"

It seems in Poiares they are very proud to put their towns' name in every stone from the street...

Here's the detail.

VII CIER

De 23 a 26 de Outubro houve o VII Colóquio Ibérico de Estudos Rurais na ESAC em Coimbra e eu fui apresentar o meu já famoso (em meio familiar!) "Flooding of the foodshed". Tive ainda a pensar em traduzir o título, mas dava algo como "Inundação da bacia alimentar", então preferi ficar quieta... ;-)

No que concerne à língua já achei curioso como na Península Ibérica se organizam encontros que não têm língua oficial e em que se recorre ao Portunhol. Mais estranho ainda num congresso científico em que normalmente se dá tanta importância a usar os conceitos certos e definí-los adequdamente (por mim até prefiro conceitos vagos e ideias boas do que ao contrário). Pensei ainda que apenas eu achava estranho o Portunhol ser língua oficial de congresso, mas durante o evento houve imensas oportunidades de ouvir as pessoas a queixarem-se que não percebiam a outra língua ou que ficavam cheios de sono nas apresentações na outra língua.

Gostava de comentar algumas ideias defendidas pelo Prof. Oliveira Baptista na sua apresentação, por ele ser tão influente nos Estudos Rurais em Portugal:

1. Oliveira Baptista insiste que o meio rural está a passar de um espaço de produção para um espaço de consumo. E ponto final. O meu problema está relacionado com o ponto final. Não há que descordar de que esta tendência se verifica: as estatísticas bem o comprovam. Mas aceitar que esta é a tendência e pronto é que não me parece desejável. Pois, quais são as consequências a nível ecológico e social desta transição rural? Creio que não se pode ficar na análise estatística de indicadores, temos que pensar se é isto o que a sociedade quer e o que a beneficia.

2. "Não posso estar de acordo com o lamento sobre o despovoamento do rural", "não devemos fazer do despovoamento um problema" e "quem foi, foi e não se arrependeu". É bastante óbvio que as pessoas que emigram dos espaços rurais Portugueses fazem-no sobretudo devido a pressões económicas, não por livre vontade. Como não conseguem ter condições de vida dignas no espaço rural vêem se obrigadas a procurar emprego em áreas mais ou menos longínquas. Julgo que isto sim é um problema. Um problema que não se pode analizar da perspectiva de que é indiferente para as rochas da Serra de haver lá perto moradores ou não. Claro que as medidas tomadas na primeira metade do século passado para manter a população no meio rural não foram as mais adequadas, mas não se trata de defender de fazer algo semelhante agora, mas sim de criar condições económicas e infraestruturas sociais para que uma vida digna em meio rural seja possível para quem a desejar.

3. Pareceu também que o Prof. Oliveira Baptista é contra os subsídios de apoio à agricultura em zonas desfavorecidas devido ao facto de ele achar que isto é subsidiar benefícios puramente privados. A ideia que foi defendida é que pagar um agricultor para ter uma propriedade pouco ou nada produtiva em boas condições beneficia apenas o agricultor. Não quero prolongar-me aqui a discutir subsídio sim ou não para áreas desfavorecidas, queria apenas frisar que os benefícios da manutenção da pequena agricultura não vão apenas para o proprietário, pelo que este argumento contra a subsidiação da agricultura em áreas desfavorecidas não é válido. É mais que sabido e provado que a manutenção de explorações marginais trás benefícios em termos de biodiversidade, agrobiodiversidade e serviços de ecossistemas para a população em geral, pelo que um subsídio público é justificável desta perspectiva.

Isto é o que tinha a dizer em relação à apresentação do antigo ministro da agricultura. Houve três outros assuntos e projectos que me interessaram bastante:
1. Reciproco - o sistema de venda directa de cabazes de pequenos agricultores para consumidores, tal como já acontece em Odemira, Setúbal e S. Pedro do Sul. (A Associação TAIPA e o projecto CriarRaízes têm mais informações!);

2. O projecto da Escola Agrária de produção de maçãs de variedades regionais Portuguesas em Modo de Prodção Biológico. As maçãs eram lindas e gostosas e acho que mudaram a minha noção de "maçã". Na minha ideia era uma fruta mais ou menos secante e sensaborosa e agora vejo as maçãs como uma verdadeira criação divina (apesar de que Deus deve ter tido um papel menor que os agricultores nos processos de melhoramento para produção das variedades tradicionais).

3. Soube de um projecto que está a decorrer desde os anos 80 no Vale de Sousa, de melhoramento participativo de variedades de milho regionais...

Island vs prision

I want to make the point that human beings are not islands. I find in my daily communication that it is very common that two people in a conversation are talking about things with completely different meanings for each other, though they are talking about the same. It is as if they were from different worlds, talking about different things. Like two islands with a ship that connects them in the summer period only.

Of course there is a sense of isolation when no one around us understands the meaning of what we say. Namely, the meaning which what we say has for us. But this does not mean that communication is impossible and we are left all alone on our shore.

Oskar Maria Graf uses a much more suitable allegory to explain these feelings of separateness. He describes humans as being prisioners. We are prisioners of ourselves. Prisioners of our educaion, our parents worldview, our own experiences, our believes. Our Shadow keeps us imprisioned. Our past and its imprint in our unconscious makes us see the world in a unique way, but it also is a hindrance to understand each other, because we tend to ignore the fact that everyone carries his baggage of past experiences around.

I have also to vehemently disagree with the pluralist and extreme social constructivist views that the world is not there as such, but it's all a matter of our own imagination and negotiations. All science would be completely nonsense and we would have to abandon any pursuit of knowledge if there was no objective world as such.

(for C.R.)

Promises

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
but I have promises to keep,
and ways to go before I sleep."

(found in an old National Geographic)

Politically incorrect: the decadence

My travels today led me through a mountain range in central Portugal. To start with I crossed an area where there were some signs of real forest with sweet chestnut trees and oaks, all in autumn colours. This place was prettier than I had anticipated. How would it be if the whole mountain range was covered in this beautiful forest from which I had observed a little patch? If the mountains were used by people in a non destructive way?... Nature's goods being valued properly by people, for what they are, not as a way to obtain something else (e.g. to make money, attract tourists).

But as I continued, the opposite I found. I started to find the mountain slopes in a horrible condition. The invasive Acacia dealbata bordering the street, Hakea from Australia in the scrublands that resulted from the woodfires. Old burned trees standing around sadly in the abandoned landscapes. Then when I entered the next village I was able not to see the nice idiylic patches, but instead just saw the horrible cold houses that are so uncomfortable that I'd rather die than live in one for an unlimited timespan. Things done carelessly, even flowers planted in ugly old pots. Sick people arguing amongst each other.

I was reminded that there is a rasant decadence. I don't mean decadence as a decline from a golden age, but simply the decadence of the present. And there's clearly no need for horror stories of the apocalyptic crisis to come (which environmentalists love to use as an argument): the here and now is horrible enough to prompt for action.

Soils are bare, meaning is scarce and no one seems to care.

Scientific method

"We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
Heisenberg

Prejudice and reincarnation from an ultra-catholic perspective

I was walking with a group of people to accompany the expropriation process of some beautiful farmland. With us was a man (60+) from the regional court to oversee the measurments of the land. This man revealed quite some interesting viewpoints. He was discussing that small-scale farming has no future anyways (justifying the expropriation of the land) and the person who was defending the value of this land argued that the land could be aggregated for modern large-scale agriculture. Even so the man was not convinced that these parcels are of any good.

I was obviosly thinking "I know better. Think only what will happen if oil prices get up a bit more: transporting food around the world will not be profitable anymore and intensive, mechanized farming will be more expensive than manual labour on small & diverse fields". But I held my tongue, wouldn't convince this man anyways ("an old donkey doesn't learn languages"), and it was just being an excellent moment to gather "local perspectives".

But then I felt compelled to intervene with another form of environmental education... While the man was discussing, he ended his pack of cigarettes and threw it right on the field where we were standing. I couldn't believe my eyes and kept quiet. But when the same thing was repeated with a sweet, and he threw the little paper on the floor I said that I was very surprised about such a behaviour from a well educated man. He replied "the owner doesn't bother anyways" and wouldn't pick up his garbage. So I had to take it, but the man didn't feel the smallest embarassment!

How little this man cares about small-scale farms and farmers and what he thinks of them was revealed further by a story of his, which he recalled to the cute old peasant walking at his side with a freshly picked eucalypt stick to aid him walk. The man said that in his village there lived a peasant who believed in reincarnation and he sometimes said that people who would have sinned very, very much in their previous lives would be reborn as peasants. Because being a peasant is such a crux, such a punishment.

The man telling this story then grumbled for himself "yes, and you never know...", making me understand that he believes there is some truth to this story. Only very mean and evil people incarnate as peasants. So: why bother about them?

At the other hand it was very interesting to find belief in reincarnation in the Beira Interior, an ultra-catholic area since centuries. But the way how karma is understood is completely coloured by catholicism: you will be punished for your sins.Old man tells peasant that only very evil people incarnate as peasants...

Mercadinho de Coimbra

The little organic market in Coimbra is still alive! Every Saturday from 9am to 1pm.

Osga - Tarentola mauritanica

This is my favourite reptile species.
What? You DON'T have a favourite reptile?
Are you mad or what?!

These little creatures are lovely in all aspects, they have beautiful eyes and can walk up a wall without a problem. Though, if they enter your flat in the 5th floor (as happened to me while I studied in Coimbra) they might be quite difficult to catch and take to a new habitat.

The sayings here in the villages about Osgas are "very realistic" as follows:
Osgas are very, very dangerous. Once there was a soldier, who had survived many battles in the war, and when he finally came home one day at night, his wife had made him a soup. However in the little house there was no electricity, just candles (the story is from the past). So the courageous soldier did not notice that an Osga fell into his soup. He took it for meat and ate it. Next day he died. Osgas are very dangerous indeed.

Iris

Back to Portugal

Back to Portugal. It has never been so lovely.
The first rain yesterday, after the hot, dry summer. Now the mountains were covered in fog the whole morning and I had to ask my little nephew where he had hidden the mountains? But now the sun is shining through the clouds and from my window I can see the mountains in the fog and the red leaves in the vineyard.

My work is a pile of blank paper and a number of scribbled papers that I need to get in order and transform into a data collection strategy, ASAP. But I do not really panic: I've got some good advice from my supervisors and as Portugal is so lovely today I don't mind coming back to do fieldwork ten more times ;-)

Selige Sehnsucht

Sagt es niemand, nur den Weisen,
Weil die Menge gleich verhöhnet,
Das Lebend'ge will ich preisen,
Das nach Flammentod sich sehnet.

In der Liebesnächte Kühlung,
Die dich zeugte, wo du zeugtest,
Uberfällt dich fremde Fühlung,
Wenn die stille Kerze leuchtet.

Nicht mehr bleibest du umfangen
In der Finsternis Beschattung,
Und dich reißet neu Verlangen
Auf zu höherer Begattung.

Keine Ferne macht dich schwierig,
Kommst geflogen und gebannt,
Und zuletzt, des Lichts begierig,
Bist du, Schmetterling, verbrannt.

Und so lang du das nicht hast,
Dieses: Stirb und werde!
Bist du nur ein trüber Gast
Auf der dunklen Erde.

[ Tut ein Schilf sich doch hervor,
Welten zu versüßen!
Möge meinem Schreibe-Rohr
Liebliches entfließen! ]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe