Encuentro 7: Urban Agriculture

URBAN AGRICULTURE - ANIETE VENEREO PEREZ CASTRO

April 19th, 2021 In this encuentro, we had the pleasure to meet with Aniete Venereo, a therapeutic clown passionate about the care and support she provided in improving the mental state of patients in hospital wards. However, given the pandemic, her work had to cease to limit hospital contacts, leaving Aniete to notice a significant increase in depression amongst the elderly in her community that were instructed to stay isolated to protect their health. Taking this matter straight to the heart, the Cuban woman turned to the garden she worked in for solidarity, applying new levels of leadership so that the products, together with hard-to-find medicine, could be distributed to vulnerable elders of the community. Before Aniete's lecture, we also had to pleasure of viewing a video of the garden thanks to Sandor and Polo. Sowing Communal Seeds And so, this space created by Aniete isn’t just a garden. As family, friends, neighbors and community members visit the plot of land weekly, trading garden supplies and strategies, it is a tool to strengthen a sense of belonging. Moreover, through the care provided to the elderly with free baskets full or produce, the garden is undoubtedly a symbol of solidarity, in its strengthening of relationships amidst the loneliness exacerbated by the restrictions of the pandemic. With this discussion, I found that Aniete Venereo’s garden was more than a response to covid, in fact rather a manifestation of historical oppression, generational strength and community care. Given the history of scarcity as seen during the Special Period, urban agriculture is significant in its use of land to provide for the community as well as resist oppression. Therefore, from an analysis of food sovereignty, Aniete’s initiative brings food justice to both victims of the embargo and vulnerable people that have seen their conditions exacerbated with the pandemic. Intergenerational Knowledge Then, the space created is a space of generational wisdom, as Aniete mentioned having been inspired by her father-in-law to start the garden. In addition, with her goal of educating her girls to the significance of the environment, hoping to “wake them up before humanity awakens” , the garden is also a place where consciousness is watered and encouraged to blossom. There, knowledge appears as a holistic process — one in which content can be learned from sources other than official, academic ones, with a focus on connectivity to the land and intrinsic wisdom to all living things.

Blossoming Identities In addition, the significance of Aniete’s garden seemed to unfold through her love for José Martí’s poetry. When explaining the tale of Rosa’s little shoes, the care put into urban agriculture seemed to transform the garden into a space of expression, of artistic and patriotic meaning. Such attribution is given most naturally because of Aniete’s career as a practitioner, as a carer for ill patients, as she puts so much of her joy and identity within the garden. This care taking root in the garden is significant as it honours Cubaness in development: making the most with scarce resources, placing love and trust into something, in hopes it'll blossom between the concrete and bring colour to all. To add to this, her use of her own nutrients to contribute to the growth of her plants further highlighted the significance of the garden in asserting identity. With Aniete’s deconstruction of westernized gender roles and biases whilst looking to care for her garden, this experience of urban agriculture therefore brought meaningful growth in consciousness as well. With that in mind, her garden can be described as a space of individuality, solidarity, belonging and bold resourcefulness.

The Grand Scheme Looking back, Aniete’s garden is therefore a manifestation of the empathy she carried in her career before the pandemic. Indeed, the care and support she provided to patients pre-COVID has been transformed into a space in which health is supported in a communal way. To that extent, the garden embodies the unique wisdom that is created in cooperative projects as knowledge is mixed with purpose and care.