XVI World Congress of Rural Sociology
July 2026

Porto Alegre

​Porto Alegre hosted several experiences of participatory governance and food democracy in recent years. Two of the best globally known are the World Social Forum and the Participatory Budgeting Policies, an experience this city pioneered in the 1990s.

This city also concentrates some of the most developed experiences of agrarian social movements in Brazil. It was, for example, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, whose capital is Porto Alegre, that the Landless Movement (MST) began in the 1980s. Today, some of the most innovative projects of alternative market networking of this movement are located in the settlements of the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre, such as the largest area of organic rice production and processing in Latin America.

In the 1980s, Porto Alegre also saw the construction of the first market for organic food in Brazil, which was a farmers’ market operating with a participatory system of certification created by a cooperative of consumers. This experience is at the origin of the Ecovida Agroecology Network, one of the most important organizations promoting organic foods and participatory certification in the world.

Briefly, Porto Alegre is both a locus of innovative State action and a hub of grassroots movements that, in articulation, are making efforts to shape more sustainable and healthier food systems.
 

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