Colombia: Arteambigua 2

Arteambigua´s huerta (market garden) is nestled into the hillside barrio of Itagui, on the outskirts of Medellin.  As I scamble down the dirt path I´m surrounded by the sounds of kids having fun, from the school playground further up the slope and the dusty community football pitch below.  The gate is unlocked - as always, I discover - and I am soon sitting on a hand-made garden seat, in the shade of the bamboo, while Carlos Edimer Sanchez tells me about their group.

"I grew up coming here as a kid", Carlos tells me.  "We used to steal tangerines from the tree over there."  In the nineties the site was home to a woman´s cooperative, which grew vegetables, baked bread to sell and received support from the local authorities.  When this dried up the cooperative left, and the tangerine thieves decided to form a group to inherit the project.  Arteambigua - an amalgam of Arte+Ambiente+Guadua (Art+Environment+Bamboo) - has thirteen official members, aged between 19-27, and a wider group of young people informally involved, turning up to help out or join in with the many activities they hold.  Kids still get the tangerines, but in exchange for kitchen waste they bring to compost.

The garden produces a year round supply of fresh vegetables - a blessing of Colombia´s equatorial climate - to which are added around 15 eggs per day from the chickens and two and half litres of milk from their two french alpine goats.  The latter takes them a hour to milk.  "We don´t yet have the skills of the campesinos (peasant farmers)" Carlos admits "so it takes us ages!"  Many of the families in the surrounding community are former campesinos, driven from the countryside by larger plantations or the ongoing violence, so there is an appreciation of what Arteambigua are doing.  Local gardens often have veg plots, sometimes goats and hens.  Arteambigua has supported this through seed swaps and demonstrations.  They run theatre workshops, musical evenings and events.

To support themselves they set up a craft workshop, kitted out through a small grant, where they demonstrate just how much you can make from Bamboo, from furniture to musical instruments.  In one corner there´s an impressive tableau of huge bamboo insects - crickets, spiders, dragonflies - many fitted as desk or wall lamps, which are sold at fairs and boutiques.  As he talks Carlos is crafting a small model spider from fine wire, a bead for the body.  How long does each one take?: "A few hours, but I'm a beginner.  Some of the others would turn one of these out in ten minutes."

The largest source of income comes from a tree nursery (vivero), set up three years ago.  The site, two minutes walk uphill, was leased to them by the local authority ('alcaldía' in spanish) on agreement that they will provide 80,000 saplings supplied at cost.  Carlos will be happy when the obligation is completed this year, allowing them to focus on a growing number of paying customers.  Output has increased from 20,000 in 2008 to 35,000 last year with an expected 80,000 by the end of 2010.

One question hangs over the project: how long before the property developers start to eye Arteambigua´s tiny plots of land? "We´ve had to move production from one side of the vivero" he explains, "to make way for a housing development".  "Are you not scared you will soon be kicked out?", I ask.  "So far the alcaldía has supported us.  We are a strong group and we are working to build so much community support that they won´t be able to get rid of us".  Yet it would be nice if they could aford to buy the huerta for themselves "in case a more capitalistic alcadía changes its mind in the future" he says.  The sum they would need? Thirty million colombian pesos - the equivalent of 15,000 US dollars.  What a small sum, from the perspective of England or the USA, to secure such a hopeful patch of urban sustainability.