Stewards of the Land - Serán las dueñas de la tierra

Puerto Rico is fertile land. I grew up in a land-occupation settlement in Vega Baja, surrounded by all the tropical fruit trees that my family could dream of. Seeing so much abundance and generosity from nature around us, I wondered how was it possible that Puerto Rico imported over 85% of our food? That question has determined my audiovisual work for almost 20 years. In my masters thesis in Caribbean Cultural Studies, I explored the displacement of farm workers from the fields to construction sites across Puerto Rico and the diaspora, as part of the new colonial vision of “development” for Puerto Rico. Later, with Mariolga Reyes Cruz, we produced 30 short documentaries presenting the new generation of ecological farmers as they embodied a counternarrative dignifying our ability and will to grow our own food. Agroecología en Puerto Rico and the SunCoast Emmy-nominated Cosecha Hoy showed farmers as they prepared the soil working with nature to cultivate healthy food for local communities. However, we knew that there was more to the story about the pursuit of food sovereignty in Puerto Rico. Stewards of the Land is our first feature-length documentary. In this film we follow the day to day of three young agroecological farmers as they confront the natural and unnatural challenges of cultivating food sovereignty with grace and dignity.