The COONATURA (Cooperativa de Produtores e Consumidores de Ideias, Alimentos e Soluções Naturais – Cooperative of Producers and Consumers of Ideas, Food and Natural Solutions) is a cooperative of natural food producers and consumers that originated in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The initiative began in 1979, through a proposal written in a letter to the readers of ‘Jornal do Brasil’ written by the couple Joaquim Moura and Ligia Lara, entitled “Food withou Poison”. Those interested should get in touch with the couple who would articulate the next steps. Hundreds of people who lived in the city of Rio de Janeiro responded to the letter and, thus, a meeting was scheduled at Lage’s Park in the city.
A group of people who shared the same ideas got together and debated about food and production alternatives, promoting, a few months later, the creation of the Cooperative of Producers and Consumers of Ideas, Food and Natural Solutions – Coonatura.
It can be understood that the beneficiaries of this initial movement were the members and supporters of the group that was formed to create and maintain the Coonatura. These corresponded to people who sought to feed themselves without pesticides, who sought to plant and feed on natural agriculture, and also people who provided land and spaces for planting and who benefited from receiving products free of pesticides produced by the cooperative. Over time, this configuration changed and other promoters and beneficiaries joined this network, such as schools, nursing homes, hospitals and producers in one of the rural areas of Petrópolis/RJ, where Coonatura leased land for organic agricultural production.
The Coonatura initially worked in urban areas, implementing gardens in schools, orphanages, nursing homes and other arable areas, the first garden being carried out at the Santa Monica boarding school. The cooperative promoted other ecological activities such as lectures, cultural events with an environmental content and protests, such as cycling from Rio de Janeiro to Angra dos Reis against the installation of nuclear power plants in Brazil, being the bicycle chosen to demonstrate human energy and to be example of a solution for pollutants emitted by cars. In agriculture, in addition to installing urban gardens, Coonatura also launched itself in the rural area of Petrópolis and, with the example of organic production and production flow in the city, encouraged neighboring producers – who adopted the chemical use of conventional agriculture – to make the agroecological transition in their crops and to sell their products without poison directly to consumers in the city, at Coonatura’s headquarters. In this way, producers would preserve their health and the environment, which they were exposed to strong chemical products, would promote their autonomy and would have economic and social benefits. Today, agroecology is the scientific basis for environmental and socioeconomic transformations, social movement and agricultural practice in promoting food sovereignty.
In addition to Coonatura, during this period the Alternative Technologies Project – PTA was created, which later became AS-PTA (Advice and Service in Alternative Technology Projects), still active today and contributing to environmental transformations, whether in the field of agriculture or other technologies. AS-PTA is associated with the work of the Brazilian Association of Agroecology and the National Articulation of Agroecology.
Agricultural transformation directly impacts the climate issue and society’s environmental awareness, as it values a non-poisonous agriculture that promotes social, economic and environmental well-being. It is understood that awareness of the impact of food and agricultural production, consequently, generates an interest in environmental causes and the impact of human actions on nature over time and how this affects human health.
Coonatura’s actions, whether through agroecological production or environmental protests, such as pedaling, contributed to an example of transformation in the mentality of those who had access to its food-free movement and its manifestations in defense of environmental changes. The Coonatura movement was involved with other groups that sought to implement alternative technologies such as solar heaters, fruit dryers using solar energy, mini-hydroelectric power plants, among others. The intention of the cooperative was to set an example that we could live well without negatively impacting the
environment we are part of.
The main values of Coonatura and, later, of the PTA were centered on the agricultural field, however, their actions also extended to other environmental issues, as mentioned above.
Coonatura’s initial agroecological movement created connections with other groups and founded, in 1994, the first fair of organic products in Rio de Janeiro, located in a central region, in the district of Glória. In 2010 the fair became part of the city’s of Organic Fairs Circuit. Another major transformative effect was that, when Coonatura started producing organics on a leased site in the district of Brejal, rural Petrópolis, it encouraged neighboring farmers to carry out an agroecological transition, in which producers started to plant without pesticides and sell their productions together with the cooperative. Currently, the region has become a reference in the production of agroecological and organic food, which has contributed to Petrópolis consolidating itself as the state capital of organic food (State Law nº 8118), which is certainly related to Coonatura’s activities.
Among the actors involved are agronomists, ecologists, students, teachers and many other people from different professions. The actors and their backgrounds are still being researched, but we can say, in advance, that the main actors are part of what we understand as the middle class.
In relation to Coonatura, it is possible to critically point out that the cooperative’s articulation could have been consolidated in a broader way, joining other cooperatives and groups from its own or from other states. However, this view is still too premature to affirm, therefore a deeper investigation is needed, which will be carried out in the course of the research.
The work of the agroecological movement in Rio de Janeiro can, and should, be applicable in other situations. Agro-ecological production can be carried out on small plots of land, in urban or rural areas, on vacant plots of land throughout the cities, and it provides transformations in the political, ecological, technical-productive, sociocultural and economic dimensions. It is possible to form groups and cooperatives for agroecological work in search of food sovereignty and environmental change.
The agroecological movement in the early years provided changes by offering the population access to pesticide-free food in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In addition, it influenced and contributed to the agroecological transition of producers in the rural area of Petrópolis, initiating the changes that, a few years later, made the city the Official Capital of Organics.