Experience of the seed house of the Tremembé people of Barra do Mundaú

Abstract

The work presents an experience lived by the indigenous families, with the seed house Raíces da Terra, located in a reclaimed area (space invaded by squatters and taken over by the people) in the Tremembé Indigenous Land of Barra Mundaú, Itapipoca-Ceará-Brazil. This municipality is known for its three climates: beach, mountain range and sertão, being the indigenous territory in the area of ​​the beach, and with a great diversity of natural resources, such as: woods, sea, dunes, mangrove, river (the mouth of the Mundaú river is one of the natural delimitations of the area), therefore, it has fertile soils and adapted to the planting of diverse cultures. The experience was initiated by farmers who saw the need to have a collective storage space for seeds, since most of them did not have them for planting at certain times of the year and depended on donations from other farmers, and was carried out with the support of the program regulated by the ASA (Articulation of the Brazilian Semi-Arid). In this sense, farmers follow the basic concepts of agroecology, which has been used by several indigenous peoples throughout the generations, and their direct relationship between food and land and the three spheres that govern humanity, that is, the environment, the environment social and above all the cultural milieu. Thus, it is ensured that the indigenous territories are one of the main guardians of agro biodiversity when speaking about the Latin American region. Finally, the seed house has been worked as one of the agroecological practices of the Tremembé territory, and this relationship has been given in a homogeneous and continuous way, in order to minimize the environmental impacts and guarantee the food security of the people.