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Rural Murders Double in 2025; Landless Workers Remain on the Front Lines of Resistance
The number of murders in Brazil's rural areas doubled in 2025. According to the *Conflicts in the Countryside Brazil* report, released this Monday (April 27) by the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), 26 deaths were recorded in the country's agrarian conflicts—up from 13 the previous year. Of the 26 victims, 16 were located in the Legal Amazon region. Pará and Rondônia top the death toll rankings, with 7 fatalities each; it was in these two states that the two massacres recorded during the period took place, each resulting in three deaths.
Although the overall number of conflicts fell by 28% compared to 2024—dropping from 2,207 to 1,593 incidents—the data reveals that this decline in recorded cases did not signify a retreat of violence. On the contrary: the violence became more lethal.
Among all groups involved in rural actions in 2025, landless rural workers were the most active in their mobilization. In total, 72 land occupations and 9 encampments were recorded as part of a larger total of 100 acts of resistance—including encampments, occupations, and land repossessions—which account for a portion of the 1,286 land-related conflicts documented during the period.
Land disputes remain the primary form of rural violence: 75% of all incidents—or 1,186 recorded cases—are related to conflicts over land occupation and possession. Maranhão leads the list with 190 cases, followed by Pará (142), Rondônia (111), and Bahia (101).
The MST: Agroecology and Reforestation
Program of Plantar Árvores: Plant 100 million trees in ten years in rural schools, cooperatives, technical training centers, squares, avenues and cities, strengthen the production of healthy food in MST settlements and encampments, denounce the destructive model of agribusiness and its impacts on the environment.
These are some of the objectives of the National Plan to Plant Trees, Produce Healthy Food, launched in 2020 by the MST throughout Brazil.
The Plan is a space for articulation, training, political organization and broad debate, reaffirming:
• People’s Agrarian Reform* and the defense of their territories and family farming;
• Food Sovereignty as a radical change in the direction of food production and distribution, providing access to healthy food especially for the most vulnerable populations, as a way of promoting preventive health in the country that uses the most pesticides in the world;
• Agroecology, which is based on sociobiodiversity, the solidarity economy and respect for traditional knowledge and local/regional cultures; and
• The care of Common Goods, such as water, minerals, land and biodiversity, which are finite natural resources and, therefore, common to all human beings (environmental preservation).
Read more on the MST's Tree Planting Program
Latest video
Gilmar Mauro, of the National Coordination of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST), presents a reflection on the political, economic, and agrarian situation in Brazil and the world.
PLEASE USE THE YOUTUBE VIDEO WHICH HAS BEEN DUBBED IN ENGLISH
Science and agroecology point the way to reducing methane emissions in rice cultivation
Researchers discussed management techniques and organic production by the MST at Porto Alegre’s Climate Action Week
Responsible for about 70% of Brazil's irrigated rice production, Rio Grande do Sul is also home to some of the country's key initiatives aimed at reducing methane emissions associated with the crop. The topic was discussed this Tuesday (7/21) during the panel "Less Methane, More Future: food security and innovation in rice cultivation," part of the program for the 1st Porto Alegre Climate Action Week (POACAW 2026).
Panelists included Mara Grohs, a researcher at the Rio Grande do Sul Rice Institute (Irga); Gabriel Quintana, coordinator of the Climate Science Initiative at Imaflora; and agronomist Edivane Portela, who works with the State Program for Ecological-Based Rice Production—in partnership with the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST)—at the Filhos de Sepé settlement in Viamão. The discussion was moderated by journalist Maria Helena Martinho and organized by the group Uma Gota no Oceano.
News from FMST
Conjunctural analysis shows that the slow pace of Agrarian Reform and the prioritization of agribusiness deepen rural inequalities and worsen the food crisis in Brazil
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