Agrarian Reform

Director-General of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Commends the Struggle of Women of Via Campesina MST Press Release (March 10, 2009) On the second day of mobilization of the I

In recent days, the press has been giving rise to a series of materials about the MST that express an offensive of the right-wing forces.

The Landless Workers Movement (MST) announces its sorrow at the death on Thursday February 5 of the Federal Deputy Adão Pretto and extends its solidarity to the family at this time of loss for Braz

In our 13th National Meeting we received the support of many friends of the Agrarian Reform movement.

IN THESE TIMES News » February 4, 2009 This Land Is Their Land The Landless Workers Movement claims a big victory in southern Brazil. By Michael Fox Members of the Landless Workers Movement (MST in Portuguese) marched to occupy the Southall farm in São Gabriel in southern Brazil on April 14, 2008. Share SÃO GABRIEL, BRAZIL—The three-day, 30-mile march stopped before the main gate. Hundreds of exhausted farmers from Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) fanned out along the fence. On the other side of the gate was the Southall Plantation, which for the last six years had been at the heart of a relentless struggle for land in southern Brazil.

Changing times for Brazil's landless By Gary Duffy BBC News, Sao Paulo state A small hut with a red flag flying above it marks the start of the Elizabeth Texeira camp in the heart of the countrys

In 1984, our country was going through an intense period of social struggles. A context of popular struggles for the end of the military dictatorship, with widespread mobilizations.

João Pedro Stedile In January 1984, there was a process of re-ascension of mass movements in Brazil. The working class was reorganizing, accumulating organic forces. Underground parties, such as the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), the Communist Party of Brazil, etc., were in the streets. We had achieved a partial amnesty, but the majority of the exiles had returned. The Worker's Party (PT), the Central Workers' Union (CUT) were taking shape, as well as the National Congress of the Working Class (CONCLAT) promoted by the communists, which later merged into the CUT. Broad sectors of the Christian churches broadened their beaver-like efforts, to keep building consciousness and nucleos de base (1) in defense of the poor, inspired by liberation theology. There was enthusiasm everywhere, because the dictatorship was being defeated and the Brazilian working class was on the offense; fighting and organizing. The peasants in the countryside lived in that same climate, amidst the same offensive. Between 1979 and 1984 dozens of land occupations were carried out throughout the country. The posseiros (2), the landless, salaried country-dwellers, lost their fear. And they fought. They did not want to migrate to the cities like bullocks to the slaughterhouse (in the words of our dear Uruguayan poet Zitarroza). As the fruit of all that, we met in Cascabel, in January 1984, encouraged by the pastoral work of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), leaders of the land struggle in 16 Brazilian states. And there, after 5 days of debates, discussions, collective reflections, we founded the MST: the Landless Workers Movement.

In 2008, we wrote yet another chapter about the struggle between the two disputing projects in Brazilian agriculture.

We of the MST along with the central unions, student organizations, peoples’ movements, and groups from civil society, are putting together a document with concerns around the country’s current soc