Introduction: City context

The city of Belo Horizonte is the capital of the brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Located on the southeastern part of the country, Belo Horizonte is the third largest metropolitan area and fourth largest city in Brazil (after Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador). With an extension of 330.9 km2 and a population of 2.238.526 inhabitants (IBGE, 2000) is also characterized for not containing a rural area. The city has a political-administrative structure composed by a prefeitura (municipality), subdivided in 09 Regionais (regions) with its own and decentralized administrations (North, the Northwest, Northeast, East, West, South Center, Barreiro, Pampulha e Venda Nova). These, in turn, are subdivided in Planning Units –PU’s- composed by urban quarters, villages and communities.

Belo Horizonte presents a high incidence of areas with irregular settlements, called favelas (slums), whose population is predominantly black, of low income and with an adult population, mainly young and women, idle due to the lack of employment.

The study area of the Program Cities Farming for the Future (CFF) is the Regional Barreiro, located in the Southwest of the City of Belo Horizonte with an area of 55,54 km² and 262,194 inhabitants. Barreiro possess the biggest amount of green areas for m² in the city (43.779m²), distributed in 30 public squares of the 49 existing ones, which beyond composing the natural landscape, contributes in the maintenance of biodiversity.