Since the late 1980s, the municipality of Teresina, located in the state of Piaui in Brazil’s semi-arid Northeast, has supported urban and peri-urban farming through its Municipal Community Gardens Programme. Facing threats ranging from climate change and inequality to occupation of their land for housing construction, gardeners are defending their lands. The experience of the Piçarreira garden demonstrates how acting quickly and collectively can make the difference between losing and preserving a space.
Over the past decades, the municipality has allocated more than 100 hectares of public land for 42 community gardens. Products grown in these gardens, which are divided into individual plots, are also sold on site by the gardeners, allowing people from surrounding neighbourhoods to buy fresh vegetables. However, despite the great number of community gardens in Teresina, the city remains heavily dependent on food brought in from other regions of Brazil.
In this intersection of climate and social pressures, the garden is both a source of livelihood and a site of endurance
These gardens are at the frontline of the climate crisis. The combination of rising temperatures, intense heat, and irregular rainfall has made cultivation increasingly difficult and has reduced yields of once-reliable crops. These environmental changes have also compounded existing inequalities.
Black women, who make up 78% of Teresina’s gardeners, shoulder agricultural labour alongside domestic responsibilities, childcare, and elder care. Many walk long distances between home and garden, often in extreme heat. At this intersection of climate and social pressures, the garden has become both a source of livelihood and a site of endurance.
In January 2021, one of the gardens – the Fraternidade Community Garden – was occupied by people seeking to construct houses and other buildings that they could later rent out for profit. This is a common event in large cities in Brazil, where there are high levels of land speculation. Local administrations have a difficult time regulating this trend, as the instruments for monitoring and regulation are weak. Even though the gardeners had registered with local authorities to cultivate their plots and had legal rights to the land, there were no repercussions following the occupation.
The women working at Fraternidade that day were violently evicted from the public land they had been cultivating for their own subsistence. Four years later, little remains to show that a garden once stood here: only mature banana trees in backyards and a few brick planting beds are still visible amidst the new construction.
The Piçarreira garden under threat
Just 200 meters from the Fraternidade site lies the Piçarreira Community Garden. During this same period it too was partially occupied, but unlike Fraternidade, most of Piçarreira’s land remains dedicated to cultivation today. This was only possible because of the gardeners’ rapid and coordinated mobilisation.
After defending their plots from eviction, they took the step of legally formalising their group
The day of the attempted takeover is still vivid in the gardeners’ memories. It happened at midday, during their lunch break, when they were sheltering from the worst of the heat. On returning, they found part of the garden destroyed. Maria do Socorro, aged 66, recalls:
“My husband has health problems and got very sick. It was as if he was dead, he collapsed right by the manilha [a concrete storage structure for irrigation water]. He got so nervous when he saw they had pulled everything out, only empty beds were left. The beans, squash, so many okra plants, everything had been growing so nicely – lettuce, arugula, kale, all sorts of things. When we got there at noon, it had all been destroyed.”
Once the gardeners realised neighbouring areas had been taken, they set up a rotating watch – women during the day, men at night – to prevent the same from happening to them. This quick and collective response stopped the invasion from advancing. Yet the threat remained, with invaders sending messages that Piçarreira’s land would be next because of its location along a busy avenue with high commercial value.
From that moment on, the need to act as a collective grew stronger. The garden began to welcome displaced gardeners from other invaded sites, with long-standing members splitting their plots to make room for newcomers. The demand was sudden, and this solidarity was crucial. Even four years later, there is still a waiting list for access to land.
From defense to organisation
The Piçarreira gardeners turned a moment of crisis into a foundation for long-term action. After defending their plots from eviction, they took the step of legally formalising their group as an association, a move that allows them to participate in political processes, access funding, and secure resources.
Without stronger public measures, the displacement of small-scale food producers is likely to continue
Reaching this milestone was not straightforward. More than 30% of the gardeners reported not being able to read or write, making the bureaucratic process challenging. With the guidance of a municipal technical assistant, they navigated the paperwork and secured official recognition.
Yet even with a formal status, the underlying pressures remain. Local authorities have taken little action to remove illegal occupiers or prevent future invasions. Gardeners who lost their spaces have not been relocated by the local municipality officials. However, some of them got new plots in Piçarreira thanks to the solidarity of other gardeners.
Lessons from Piçarreira
The experience of Piçarreira underscores the fact that resilience is built through collective organisation. When the gardens were under threat, swift mobilisation and mutual support were decisive for protecting the space. Solidarity proved not to be a burden but a strength; welcoming displaced gardeners reinforced the group’s unity and sense of purpose.
Still, the collective process revealed limits. While the association provides a platform for shared decision making, day-to-day practices in procurement and sales often remain individual. Most gardeners buy agricultural inputs such as tools and manure for their own plots and sell their produce independently. This coexistence of collective structures with individualist habits shows that resilience is not a permanent state but a dynamic balance between cooperation and autonomy.
Looking ahead
The experience described here is part of a larger picture. Teresina, like many other cities, is grappling with a
housing crisis, rural migration driven by the expansion of agribusiness and ‘green’ energy projects, and an absence of integrated urban planning. Without stronger public measures, the displacement of small-scale food producers is likely to continue.
Today, the Piçarreira gardeners are turning to storytelling as a form of resistance. We are working with them to develop a co-created map that documents the history and presence of Black women in Teresina’s urban and peri-urban agriculture. This work reframes the gardens: not as charitable projects, as they are often portrayed in municipal and academic narratives, but as autonomous, emancipatory spaces and climate refuges. The shift in narrative matters: it challenges the paternalistic framing that casts women gardeners as passive recipients of aid. Instead, it centers their role as active agents: defending land, adapting to climate and economic shocks, and sustaining production under extreme conditions.
For other communities facing similar threats, Piçarreira offers a set of profound lessons. Acting quickly and collectively can make the difference between losing and preserving a space. Keeping the land visibly cultivated deters opportunistic occupation. Formalising a collective structure strengthens political legitimacy. Above all, recognising the histories and leadership of those who maintain these spaces transforms the gardens from plots of cultivated soil into defended territories of belonging, work, and dignity.
Authors: Mariana Fiuza is a researcher at the Center for International Studies at ISCTE – Lisbon, where she is pursuing her doctoral research on urban gardens in Teresina, her hometown. Kalil Luz is an agronomist and environmental analyst at the Municipal Secretariat for the Environment of Teresina. He is also a member of the Piauí Agroecology Network – ArREPIA. Cristiane Lopes is a professor, and coordinates the Agroecology Experimentation Center at the Federal University of Piauí. Nayla Gabrielle and Fabiano Santos are students in the Agroecology Technology program at the Federal University of Piauí. The Agroecology Experimentation Center is a research and extension group at the Federal University of Piauí, Brazil. Contact: Mariana_Costa_Fiuza@iscte-iul.pt
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This article is part of Issue 3-2025: Weaving Resilience and Resistance
