The Landless Rural Workers’ Movement and the Political Situation in Brazil

Friends of the MST from Around the World
Greetings from the MST’s Internationalist Sector

Once again we are approaching the International Day of Peasant Struggles as well as the day when we remember the martyrs of the Massacre of Eldorado dobCarajás, Pará state – April 17, 1996.  For almost three decades, April has been the month in which our flags fly highest, when our will to fight is strengthened, driven by memory and indignation, but also by the many forms of solidarity that we have received each year.

Unfortunately, it will also be another year in which encamped and settled families will need to be mobilized to pressure the Brazilian state to advance Agrarian Reform. President Lula da Silva’s third term was the result of resistance and the struggle against neo-fascism. However, the government faces many difficulties in meeting the social demands of the poorest population, urban or rural, due to the permanent opposition of the financial market, which hijacks part of the budget to pay exorbitant interest rates and threatens the government with speculative attacks. Also contributing to this scenario is the strength of agribusiness and the performance of the most conservative congress in the country’s history.

In this context, President Lula’s presence in Campo do Meio, Minas Gerais state, was especially important and loaded with symbolism. On March 7, the president recognized the former Adrianópolis sugar cane farm and mill as a settlement and destination for Agrarian Reform purposes. The more than 4 thousand hectares territory, named Quilombo Campo Grande, was expropriated to house 300 families; before that, it was occupied for 27 years and withstood 11 evictions, the hardest of them during the pandemic, when the Eduardo Galeano Popular School was destroyed. At the time, the government also announced the 60 new settlements in 16 states and the Federal District, comprising 4,883 new families.

Symbolic, but insufficient. These are the first concrete and major announcements after two years of government. In addition, another 100 thousand families are still awaiting settlement, most of them for almost a decade. Apart from the pace, the government’s budget is not nearly enough to move the process forward. The budget for Agrarian Reform in 2025 could settle a maximum of 4 thousand families.

The government’s slowness, unfortunately, coincides with a period in which the Brazilian population faces successive increases in food prices, caused by agribusiness speculation and the destination of food for the foreign market. Agrarian Reform, in addition to generating jobs and moving the local economy, could directly contribute to reducing the cost of living and improving the food quality of the population, today forced to consume ultra-processed and poor quality food at more affordable prices. An investment in infrastructure and the release of credits for settled families would also be decisive to overcome this situation. Today, for example, there is a demand for fifty thousand new rural housing units and 150 thousand reforms for settlement houses. In turn, only in credit for the next crop, agribusiness will receive R$600 billion (US $ 120 billion).

This situation and the denunciation of the evils of agribusiness led to the mobilization of twelve thousand women organized by MST in more than 70 activities – during the women’s struggle week in March – when various actions, in all states, denounced the impact of cellulose and pesticides for Brazilian society.

In addition to improving the living conditions of settled and encamped families, the struggle for land and the construction of Popular Agrarian Reform must also address the environmental issue. In Rio Grande do Sul, most families still cannot count on the resources to recover the areas and structures promised by the government almost a year ago. But in addition to international solidarity, the MST was able to resume part of the production with the use of bio-inputs for soil recovery. This important achievement was celebrated at the Opening Ceremony of the Organic Rice Harvest, maintaining MST’s position as the largest organic rice producer in Latin America. MST is also celebrated for the continuity of the national tree planting plan, the political education of our young people and the construction of the Youth Environmental Brigade (Brigada Ambiental da Juventude). And certainly there will be fertile ground to expand agroecological production in the Campo do Meio quilombo settlement.

With our willingness build and fight for, from now on, a new more just and fraternal society that produces healthy food to feed the Brazilian people,

Warmly, MST’s Internationalist Sector

Translation: Eduardo Rodríguez
Proofreading: Natalie Illanes Nogueira