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By: Isabella Kenfield For Global Alternatives As Brazil's economy booms from rising agricultural commodity prices worldwide, conflicts over land in the Amazon--where the agricultural frontier is rapidly expanding--are also on the rise. At times, the region appears to be ungovernable for the administration of President Luis Inácio "Lula" da...
Agrofuels, like ethanol, are part of an agricultural model that does not produce food, but on the contrary, increases environmental damage through deforestation, burning sugarcane, and other social consequences like the use of slave labor on the plantations.
Instead, big groups of foreigners and agribusinesses, who receive voluminous aid...
Maputo, the capital of Mozambique was the site of the 5th International Conference of La Via Campesina. More than 600 men and women peasants and small farmers from 60 countries met from October 16 to the 23rd to discuss the situation in agriculture, emphasizing that the solution to the problem of hunger is Food Sovereignty. In contrast to the...
The United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO) announced that the number of people that go hungry in the world rose from 850 million to 925 million this year. What caused this? The increase in the price of food. And the poor are the hardest hit by the crisis.
The price of staple grains, such as corn, rice and soy, doubled...
Brazil’s civil society needs to start having a major discussion: a discussion about the exploration, production, and use of oil found in the pre-salt layer. The management of our natural resources – our oil, our minerals, our water, our land, and the like – should be controlled by the people, and administered on the basis of national interests...
Agrarian Reform has reached a standstill all over Brazil. It was for this reason that, in July, MST workers from 12 Brazilian states protested in the streets, at INCRA (National Institute of Agrarian Colonization and Reform) headquarters, and farms, demanding the settlement of the 140,000 encamped families and public funding for the already...
The MST needs your support to stop a campaign to criminalize all social movement activity in Rio Grande do Sul
In late June, the MST presented a document to the public that proves a strategy on the part of the Rio Grande do Sul State Public Ministry to “dissolve” the MST. The document outlines a meeting, on December 3,...
NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Some 300 protesters blocked a key iron ore export railway belonging to mining giant Vale as nationwide protests against multinational corporations continued Thursday for a third day. Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA said in a statement that farm workers started blocking the railway line that carries 70 cargo trains...
The Associated Press Tuesday, June 10, 2008 SAO PAULO, Brazil: Thousands of landless rural workers invaded dams, railways, plantations and corporate headquarters in a wave of protests across eight Brazilian states on Tuesday. Rogerio Homm, a coordinator with the Via Campesina activist group, said the protests are aimed at large corporations...
Esteemed friends of the MST, The approval of Provisionary Measure 422, Medida Provisória (MP) 422, by the federal deputies on Tuesday night, May 27, a few hours after the resignation of Marina Silva, the Ministry of the Environment, confirms that the defense of biodiversity is losing the battle against deforestation and development at whatever...