MST kicks off the 5th National Agrarian Reform Fair with an expected turnout of 300,000 people

From the MST website

The largest social movement in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement of Brazil (MST) kicked off its 5th National Agrarian Reform Fair on May 8 and it will run to May 11 in São Paulo’s Água Branca park. The MST seeks to offer the Brazilian public a variety of food and products made on land that has been expropriated or occupied for agrarian reform across Brazil. More than 300,000 people are expected to attend this year’s fair, including the general public, politicians, artists, and representatives of popular movements and trade unions. This year, the movement celebrates the tenth anniversary of the largest Agrarian Reform and Peasant Family Farming Fair in the country.

More than 500 tons of healthy food and 1,800 different types of products, including fresh and processed foods, will be sold during the four days of the fair. This production represents the best of family and peasant agriculture in camps and settlements in the country’s Agrarian Reform areas. Landless workers from 23 states and the Federal District, organized through collectives, cooperatives, and agro-industries of the movement, participate in the fair.

About 100 typical dishes, bringing the flavors and aromas of regional cultures of Brazil, will be served in the Culinária da Terra (Cooking of the Land) space, where there are 23 kitchens from the Brazilian states where the MST is organized.

The Fair seeks to present to Brazilian society the fruits of the struggle for land and the viability of the Popular Agrarian Reform project to combat hunger, high food prices, the environmental crisis, and the deadly agribusiness model.

The national leader of the MST’s production sector, Giselda Coelho, affirms that the MST National Fair is an important space for the presentation and commercialization of healthy products and foods from the Agrarian Reform settlements, as well as a space to contribute to the construction of public policies.

“The widespread adoption of agroecology and healthy food production is a challenge because today it still has a cost. To advance this process, we need more robust public policies from governments,” she says.

Several political leaders will participate in public events and visit the fair, including Brazilian government ministers Gleisi Hoffmann, from the Secretary of Institutional Relations; Paulo Teixeira, from the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming; Márcio Macedo, from the General Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic; and Celso Sabino, from the Ministry of Tourism.

During the four days of the fair, more than 250 artists will perform theater, dance, and music, and the fair will also have art installations, among other activities, at various times throughout the program. Every night, important names from the Brazilian music scene will perform, such as guitarists Xangai and Almir Sater, samba singer Tereza Cristina, and rapper Djonga, in addition to Brazilian popular music (MPB) and rock singers Arnaldo Antunes, Fat Family, FBC, Catto, Marina Lima, and Paulinho Moska.

The program also includes the launch of products from the Popular Agrarian Reform, a donation of 25 tons of food to 50 vulnerable communities in Greater São Paulo, seminars, workshops, documentary screenings, and an exhibition area for the “National Plan to Plant Trees, Produce Healthy Food,” featuring a variety of native seeds and seedlings of ornamental, medicinal, and fruit plants. 

Internationalism will also be present at the fair through the presentation of international solidarity campaigns at the Berta Cáceres Literary Café and at the International Solidarity Act on the last day of the fair, with the presence of the ambassadors of Cuba, Venezuela, and the Western Sahara.

Check out the complete program at: https://mst.org.br/especiais/feira-nacional-da-reforma-agraria-2025/

*Edited by Fernanda Alcântara
*Translation: Zoe Alexandra