Interview with Rita from "A Cerquinha"

Rita Pacheco is our unflinching yet gentle provider of all the greens you can eat, perky red chillies, wrinkled sweet potatoes, and flowers for salad and vase.

She not only provides us (as private customers) with her unique vegetables, but also many restaurants from here to Lisbon.

MUI: When did you start your project being an organic female farmer? What made you do it?

Rita: I have an educational background in the area of animal breeding, but when I was studying in Mértola I started working in biological production of aromatic & medicinal herbs. This is when I realized that’s what I wanted to do. When I came back to Grândola in 2015, after my studies were completed, I started to prepare the Cerquinha Project, that eventually started in 2016.

MUI: What is your link with Melides?

Rita: I’m originally from Grândola, so Melides has always been present in my life. Today, we have a lot of clients from Melides that come and get their vegetables here, or we deliver on Tuesdays.

MUI: What's your goal with this project?

Rita: My main objective is mainly on a local level. I want this municipality to have an offer of biologically produced products, fresh and seasonal. I want my clients to pass by the garden, take their kids, so they understand it’s possible to grow without using chemicals. I also like to give importance to the seasonal aspect of growing vegetables, something that has completely disappeared with the big supermarkets that offer all products all year long in a very unsustainable way.

MUI: Who do you work with?

Rita: I have two people working with me full-time. I also have my parents who help whenever they are free. We only sell what we grow ourselves, so we don’t work with other producers. We recover ash and coffee dregs from the cafés and restaurants we deliver to. This way we like to promote a zero-waste philosophy.  What is considered waste for them, is gold for our soils.

MUI: Who are your clients?

Rita: We work directly with private consumers and with restaurants. The private consumers come to the garden themselves or we work with weekly deliveries. The restaurants we work with are Cavalariça and ALMO (Comporta), Taberna da Vila, A Talha (Grândola), Twopack kitchen (Melides), Alma Nómada (Porto Covo), Ginger café (Santo André), Sem e Tati (Lisboa).

MUI: What's the most beautiful aspect of being an organic farmer, or growing food for others in general?

Rita: I really love it. It is really gratifying to see the plants grow from when they are seeds until they end up in the baskets to go to clients.  We take care of the plants from when they are smaller than 5mm until they go to the client’s kitchen. We have been receiving very good feedback, the clients can see, touch, smell and taste that the products are full of love (and some small insect friends from time to time). It’s hard to explain, you really need a passion for this kind of work, otherwise it’s too difficult to do. It’s so nice to work on the countryside, far away from the busy, noisy world. We see the sunset and sunrise front row, accompanied by the smell of coriander and basil and the sound of little birds.

MUI: What's the most challenging aspect of your project?

Rita: The most difficult part is definitely not being able to close the doors on Friday night and come back on Monday morning. It’s a 7 days working week, 365 days a year. I did not take any holiday since I started 6 years ago, but there is hope! That’s why it’s so important to like what we’re doing. The fact that we work 100% biological can also be frustrating because sometimes we have to deal with plagues that end up in having to throw away crops ( which does make the chicken and sheep happy though).

MUI: And finally: What are your dreams for the future?

Rita: My dream is to continue what I’m doing, as long as it makes sense, so let’s hope for many years to come. And I also really hope the ground water supply does not end due to climate change and the unsustainable touristic growth in this area, that worries me. I would love to have more and more people coming to the garden themselves, picking their own baskets with the family. It makes them see ad understand the importance of seasonality and agriculture without pesticides. That’s my dream, to contribute to a more sustainable world this way.

We did this interview with Rita exactly one year ago. But anyone who knows us knows we've had so much work to do in this particular year that we had to prioritize other things first to get MUI running.

And it's not just us that have developed a lot. In the meantime, Rita has opened a wonderful shop in Grandola where she sells her products. Her list of clients / restaurants has also grown significantly. She is now delivering her organic products also to restaurants like "Nossa Casa", "SEM", "Trickys", "Boavista Social Club", "Tati", "Senhor Uva" and "Agora" (all in Lisbon).

We have been her fans from the beginning and always will be.