The Seed Guardian of the Caatinga

In the semi-arid region of Minas Gerais, a catingueiro shares his home with the memory of his ancestors and generations of plant varieties

Standing up, hat on his head, glasses on his face and accordion in his hand, Mr. Geraldo Gomes sings one of his own songs: “I live in the middle of the woods, close to Mother Nature, enjoying the fragrance of the flowers… My field is a diversity, I plant a little of many varieties…” As he plays, his mother, Dona Rita, dances.

We are in the family’s living room, in the community of Touro, in the town of Serranópolis de Minas, in the northern part of the state of Minas Gerais. On the walls hang family photos, many diplomas and certificates from the countless courses Mr. Geraldo has taken. There is a bit of everything.

There is also a table with jars filled with seeds and with liqueurs he makes using plants grown in his fields. “The liqueur, I make from several plants. From pumpkin, banana, corn, juá de boi, from moringa. There must be about thirty species we make here.”

Geraldo Gomes is sixty two years old and was born in the house where he receives us, the same place where his mother was born and where his grandmother was married. The son and grandson of farmers, he began going to the fields at seven years old, accompanying his father and grandfather, who said that “a field has to be like the bush, it has to have many plants.” They planted everything: rice, peanuts, sugarcane, pumpkin, maxixe, corn, beans, broad beans… “And many other things. That is how I learned,” he says.

One of the family’s practices, part of the sertanejo tradition passed down through generations and kept alive by Mr. Geraldo, is saving and exchanging seeds. “We saved them so we would not be dependent. Sometimes, when it was time to buy, you could not find them, and many times, when you did find them, you did not have the money. I learned that from them.”

If the farmer’s living room draws attention for its richness of detail, the seed house is even more striking. Shelves hold jars and plastic bottles filled with hundreds of seeds in many colors and sizes. Across the floor, even more bottles. And dozens of gourds. He says there are more than two hundred varieties of seeds.

For more than one hundred years

Mr. Geraldo is known and celebrated as an important guardian of heirloom seeds in northern Minas Gerais. “A guardian is someone who has several species of many plants, preserves them and seeks out other varieties that are disappearing. He saves and multiplies them. We have seeds that have been planted for more than one hundred years. We keep them to show the importance they have had, and the importance they may have for future generations,” he explains. “Today we see that the trend is that most of these species are disappearing, whether native or cultivated.”

In the family farming of the semi arid region, where the climate is marked by long periods of drought, food is produced without pesticides, and the seeds are selected and stored. There are seeds for watermelon, pumpkin, cotton and more than seventy types of beans: white, black, yellow, red, striped, catador and moita. There are also seeds for broad beans, okra, maxixe, castor beans and peanuts. He also keeps seeds of medicinal plants. As for corn, there are countless varieties: white corn, used to make canjica; coruja corn, colorful and fluffy, with a large ear that is good for animals; black crioulo corn; Tupiniquim corn; catingueiro corn; cateto corn…

At the entrance to the seed house, a sign indicates that the initiative is supported by the One Land and Two Waters Program (Programa Uma Terra e Duas Águas), from the Semi arid Network (Articulação do Semiárido), a coalition that advocates for living harmoniously with the semi arid region. The Center for Alternative Agriculture of Northern Minas, which promotes agroecology and the rights of traditional peoples and communities in the region, is also one of the organizations supporting the work of Geraldo Gomes.

Climate change

The role of seed guardian began very early in Mr. Geraldo’s life. It started as soon as he made his first field, when he planted cotton, beans and corn. At the beginning, there was no dedicated house for the seeds; they were kept in a corn crib. “And every passing year, we have been selecting these seeds. Today, what you find most often on the market are transgenic species,” he laments. Mr. Geraldo sells his seeds at open air markets, at seed exchange fairs or by order.

His preservation work faces many difficulties. “If you do not have a lot of patience and love for the seeds, you end up giving up. There are few incentives and few people who are interested in this work. And I look at the benefits you can gain from what you plant. It is a guarantee in the face of these difficulties, when there are so many pesticides. Because the entire planting system has changed.”

Mr. Geraldo maintains an agroecological field where he plants cotton, peanuts, beans, watermelon and sweet potatoes. He adopts an agroforestry system, or SAF. Walking through his property, he shows us fruit trees—such as tamarind, sugar apple, cashew and jambolan—and medicinal plants. “It is a way of having everything at the same time: an integrated agroforest for food production and soil fertilization, in addition to preserving the environment.”

The diversity of plants and products is undeniable, but not without challenges. The arrival of monoculture farms nearby and the effects of climate change harm production. “When you do not use pesticides but the other person does—when he is spraying, you can smell it in the air. So it harms us. And today they are even using drones to spray pesticides.” The river water is also contaminated, he reports. “We see this with sadness, because before the monoculture of cotton, the river flowed. You might have little rain, but it still flowed. With the destruction that happened came deforestation. Today, everything is being lost, and climate change is because of exactly that.”

In the 1970s, livestock, irrigation and cotton monoculture projects arrived in the region, using agricultural practices promoted by the so called Green Revolution: hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and mechanization. According to Geraldo, “it was a period of great destruction. Many native plants were cleared for cotton planting. And people went through a lot of hardship. Because the cotton monoculture was financed by the bank, and people became dependent on the bank. As a result, many lost their land to pay their debts,” he recalls. In addition, many died from poisoning as the waters became contaminated. “There were times when you were in the river, you went to bathe in the afternoon, and you would see that little stream of poison coming down, kind of green, like grease.”

“And this system that I plant here — many times people would say it was a crazy person’s field, that I must be crazy to use this system,” he says. “But at least I preserved the life of many species. It was because of this craziness. Otherwise, everything might be gone.”Geraldo’s “crazy field” is essential for preserving the Caatinga. Between 1985 and 2023, the biome lost 14.4 percent, or 8.6 million hectares, of its native vegetation cover, according to the MapBiomas platform. What remains represents 59.6 percent of the biome, or 51.4 million hectares. In almost four decades, the area dedicated to agriculture expanded by 1.8 million hectares. There were 115 thousand hectares occupied by the activity in 1985, and in 2023 it reached 1.9 million hectares. Pastures increased the most: 12.1 million hectares, a growth of 112 percent between 1985 and 2023, rising from 10.8 million to 22.9 million hectares.

Medicines and accordion

Besides the seeds, the liqueurs and the products from the field, Mr. Geraldo also makes some medicines and other goods, such as castor oil, sesame oil and scrapings from juá de boi, which are sold to France to make shampoo. “And we also have mulungu and umburana, which are medicinal,” he says. The umbu, used for liqueurs, is also a medicinal plant. “The ranchers who were here in the region cut down many umbu trees for pasture — it is very sad. An umbu tree has great value. Besides the liqueur, with it we can prepare several dishes.”

In addition to being a family farmer, Mr. Geraldo is a singer and composer. Music is also a family tradition, inherited from earlier generations. In 1955, four uncles founded a musical group that played at the festivities of Serranópolis and the neighboring municipality of Porteirinha. “It was in clubs, during Carnival, São João festivities, square dances,” he recalls. “My father was an accordion player, a pé de bode player, my grandfather and uncles too, so I learned a little,” he says.

The members of the quartet, called Seresteiros do Luar, were gradually replaced, and today Mr. Geraldo is one of them. “We are doing this work to revive a bit of Folia de Reis, the culture of the past, the sertanejo culture that I do not want to let disappear,” he says.

But keeping the group going also has its difficulties. One week before our visit to the farmer’s property, one of the members passed away. “He played the agogô, recited poetry, did the introductions.” The Seresteiros perform at many festivities, and Geraldo sings and composes songs. He sang some for us.

Mr. Geraldo says he wants to transform the seed house into a seed museum. The property is a tourist attraction in the region, receiving visitors from various states and countries. “Whoever comes always takes the liqueurs. And we reinforce the importance of preserving the importance of family farming.”