Curitiba's good medicine.

• Author: Holston, Mark
• Position: Upfront - Social program growing medicinal plants near Curitiba, Brazil

AT FIRST GLANCE, the fazenda looks like many other small, specialized farms that dot the rolling, fertile landscape of Brazil's southern states. But this agricultural operation in the state of Parana is different. At Fazenda da Solidaridade, the farmhands manning the hoes and rakes aren't seasoned country people working to make a living off the land, but drug addicts and alcoholics who've surrendered themselves to this grueling routine for a chance at turning their lives around. And from the soil they till to the finished products that roll out the farm's gate to markets in nearby Curitiba, every detail of this unique operation has a well thought-out purpose.

The forty-three-acre farm, about eight miles south of Curitiba, cultivates about a dozen medicinal plants, including chamomile, babosa (Aloe vera), and carqueja (Baccharis timera), which are processed into a variety of herbal teas, syrups, poultices, and other products destined for city-nm cooperative health-food stores.

"To cure maladies of the body and soul" is how Verde Saude, or Green Health, the project that oversees the operation, describes its mission. A project of the Municipal Secretariat of Agriculture and Provisions (known by its Portuguese acronym, SMAB), Verde Saude utilizes its Solidarity Farm to produce maximum benefits for the city's residents.

The workers who voluntarily enter the program for a term of up to nine months receive, in exchange for their labor, counseling, medical care, job training, and a dose of healthy country living to get them back on their feet. Some of the products they and a small staff of specialized technicians turn out are distributed free of charge, like the 240,000 packets of herbal tea produced annually. Other more artistic creations, such as tapestries created from hemp and a variety of paper...