Agrarian Reform

By Luiz Felipe Albuquerque

Agriculture has undergone a major transformation in Brazil over the past 10 years, with the advancement of the agribusiness model. This model is based on: the production of monocultures on large estates; in an alliance of capitalist farmers, transnational corporations and financial capital; a mechanization that promotes expelling families from the countryside; and in an excessive use poisons, the agro-toxins.

La Via Campesina (a sister organization of MST) presents a political platform to the federal government of Brazil which includes emergency measures, medium term measures, and strategies for the development and strengthening of family-based and peasant agriculture. The proposals are listed below.

Emergency Measures

The report amending the Forest Code, presented by congressman Aldo Rebelo (Communist Party of Brazil [PCdoB]) and approved by the House of Representatives Special Commission benefits the large landholders of Agribusiness.

By Rafael Soriano

At 88 years of age, the bishop emeritus of Goiás, Dom Tomas Balduíno, lives in the Dominican Monastery of  St. Jude Thaddeus in Goiânia, but travels throughout the world at the invitation of groups who ask him to speak about the latifúndio, monoculture, and water.

by Cliff Welch

[Ed. Note:  This article is from NACLA Report on the Americas, March/April 2011 and is part of a special issue on Lula’s legacy.]

Until Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victorious 2002 campaign for president, Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) had consistently supported a radical definition of agrarian reform. Seen as a crucial tool for building socialism, agrarian reform would weaken the ruling class fragment that secured its power by controlling large swaths of Brazilian territory and help pave the way for the victory of a PT-controlled government. In the years before he was elected president, Lula went out of his way to participate in land occupations, marches, and forums organized by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and other peasant groups. He visited jailed leaders like José Rainha

MST occupies an area of 1,000 hectares on the border of Ceará and Paraíba

April 7, 2011

By Marcelo Matos
Fortaleza, Ceará
Da Página do MST

About 80 families organized by the MST encampments in Ceará and Paraíba, occupied the Gravatá farm, which has 1,000 hectares in the municipality of Mauriti.

By Vanessa Ramos

An additional survey from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) suggests that food insecurity is higher in rural than in urban areas.

While 6.2% and 4.6% of households in urban areas had moderate or severe levels of food insecurity, respectively, in rural areas the figures were 8.6% and 7%.

In the early hours of Wednesday, about 200 police officers took a violent action and raided the camp Antônio Irmão in Itaquiraí, Mato Grosso do Sul (MS).

The police had no warrant, but invaded the camp and entered the homes of the encampment, searched families and seized material for working in the fields.

The camp has 670 families, including 'brasiguaios' who were expelled from their lands by large landowners in Paraguay and Brazil and who live on the border of both countries.