Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, or in Portuguese Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), is the largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless members organized in 23 out 27 states. The MST carries out long-overdue land reform in a country mired by unjust land distribution. In Brazil, 1.6% of the landowners control roughly half (46.8%) of the land on which crops could be grown. Just 3% of the population owns two-thirds of all arable lands.
Since 1985, the MST has peacefully occupied unused land where they have established cooperative farms, constructed houses, schools for children and adults and clinics, promoted indigenous cultures and a healthy and sustainable environment and gender equality. The MST has won land titles for more than 350,000 families in 2,000 settlements as a result of MST actions, and 180,000 encamped families currently await government recognition. Land occupations are rooted in the Brazilian Constitution, which says land that remains unproductive should be used for a “larger social function."
The MST’s success lies in its ability to organize and educate. Members have not only managed to secure land, therefore food security for their families, but also continue to develop a sustainable socio-economic model that offers a concrete alternative to today's globalization that puts profits before people and humanity.
Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) in Portuguese, is the largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless members organized in 23 out 27 states. The MST carries out long-overdue land reform in a country mired by unjust land distribution. In Brazil, less than 3% of the population owns two-thirds of the land on which crops could be grown.
Through the creation and expansion of the movement, members of the movement have developed an organizational structure, policies and projects in order to address specific demands. These areas of work, called "sectors" or "collectives" include production, cooperation, education, environment, gender, political education, health, culture, communications, human rights, youth.
The following primary accomplishments are highlighted as fruitful results of the dedication of MST leaders in partnership with the public sector; parties of the left, labor unions, and other social movements, progressive churches, international cooperation agencies, NGOs, “Friends of the MST", etc:
As farmers, this MST sector reflects major organizational achievements in the area of agriculture, continuing to improve relationships among farmers and their relationship to the land and their environment.
Since 1985*, the MST has created:
• 400 production, commercialization, and services associations
• 63 Agricultural production Cooperatives, both Collective and Semi-Collective with 2,299 associated families
• 22 Trade Services Cooperatives with 11,174 direct members
• 3 Credit Cooperatives (Popular Bank) with 5,400 associates
• 96 small and medium agro-industrial food processors of fruits and vegetables, dairy, cereals, meats, and confectionery
• “Green Embrace" Project for forest preservation through consortium plantations
• Environmental Education Campaign for beautifying the settlements by planting trees, flowers, forests and establishing gardens
• Production of BioNatur Agroecological (organic) Seeds
• Several orchards for reforestation in Agrarian Reform areas
• Production of organic maize seeds
• Training of settlers in alternative technologies for agroecological production
(*MST Data from 2003)
POLITICAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING SECTOR
Education and training plays a fundamental role so that the settlers and encamped families living in the Agrarian Reform areas can learn about the reality and conditions that surround them. They can thus join forces and organize to transform their own conditions and make it possible for many others to have access to land and a more dignified life. This can only be achieved through dedication and concrete means. These trainings happen at encampments, settlements, state and regional schools as well as the newly completed Florestan Fernandes National School outside Sao Paulo.
Training activities are contributing to the following aspects:
a) Awareness-raising about the Brazilian reality;
b) Developing a resistance campaign to ensure our permanence in the countryside;
c) Articulation with other small farmers’ entities against agricultural policies;
• National Training Program for MST Leaders and the Grassroots, with 500 active trainers.
• Political training courses for leaders, especially for youth in partnership with universities.
ITERRA-JOSUÉ DE CASTRO SCHOOL
ITERRA, the Technical Institute for Education and Research on Agrarian Reform is based in Veranópolis (RS) and maintains the Escola Josué de Castro. ITERRA started in 1997 by the MEC and carries out the following courses:
• TAC -Technician in Administration of Cooperatives;
• Normal mid-level course, for rural secular teaching;
• Specialization course in Cooperative Administration – CEACOOP, in partnership with UnB, Unisinos e Unicamp;
• Mid-level course, emphasizing Social Communications
• Nursing and community health course
• Supplementary courses, primary and secondary, for nighttime workers
The courses take place in a system that alternates school time and community time.
FLORESTAN FERNANDES SCHOOL
The Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes opened in 2005 and functioned since 1999 carrying out and coordinating formal and informal courses in training centers in several states.
Today, a beautiful campus in Guararema (SP) was built through Voluntary Work Brigades from settlements and encampments throughout the country, using an innovative cement floor method. (View photos).
In July 2005, Oscar Niemayer, an internationally reknowned Brazilian architect and recipient of the 2004 MST "Land Struggle Award" agreed to design the Auditorium Building that will be part of the complex of the National Florestan Fernandes School outside Sao Paulo.
The first space to be erected on every encampment and settlement is a school for children, youth and adults. Once families received land through land reform, they begin to struggle to access to government provided schools in their communities.
The MST has achieved:
• Training of educators at middle and higher levels.
• Basic education of 15,000 youth and adults, by means of partnerships with 59 universities;
• 1,000 1st to 4th grade schools and 100 5th to 8th grade schools established;
• 1,400 classrooms with 25,000 youth and adults receiving literacy education from 2000 educators;
• 300 educators work with children from 0 to 6 years olds in the day care centers, with 250 centers in 23 states, functioning alongside production cooperatives and production associations in settlements, encampments and training courses.
• School in Rio Grande do Sul, which serves children from 7 to 12 years old from 1st to 5th grades
• The National Conference of Basic Education in the Countryside, which took place in Brasília together with CNBB, UNESCO, UNICEF and the MST with 1000 professors from rural areas.
One of the principles of MST is the transformation of society, seeking to build a united society, with social justice, capable of guaranteeing a dignified life to all of the population. To achieve this, the MST understands the need to end inequality in gender relations. The MST believes that in order to grow as new women and men new economic, social, political and environmental relationships must be based on values such as respect, friendship, solidarity, justice and love.
Obviously there are gender inequalities within the MST; after all, the movement is not an island within society. The Gender sector facilitates discussion of gender relations within MST and encourages women to engage with and direct the movement-to be subjects and not merely objects of history.
Among others, we consider essential that from now on MST seeks to:
-Guarantee childcare at courses, events, meetings in national, state, regional and local instances; permanent child care in the camps and settlements so children are not impediments of women’s participation in activities of education and in daily work.
-Have 50% of men and women in all activities of education and training.
-Struggle for joint land titles and right to credit in the name of couples.
-Assure that projects of investment, definitions of lines of production, and finally, economic decisions are taken only with family participation.
-Guarantee one male and one female coordinator in the community bases.
-Campaign to document rural working women.
-Conduct intensive education regarding the theme of gender in all sectors and instances
Otherwise we will have in our homes, communities of camps and settlements and in the body of the organization, values such as exploitation, discrimination, violence, authoritarianism and individualism, pillars of the society we are trying to destroy.
The new woman and the new man are within us. But it is necessary to awaken them and let them bloom, to construct together a new way of society.
The MST also struggles for access to healthcare and strives to grow and utilize local herbs and ingredients in living pharmacies on settlements and encampments:
The MST has achieved:
• Training of community health educators;
• HIV/AIDS prevention program in partnership with the Ministry of Health;
• Land and Health Program, with groves for medicinal plant production, with FIOCRUZ/ PETROBRAS / Ministry of Health;
• Medical training in Cuba for youth from settlements;
• Diagnostics reaching 9,000 settled families regarding quality of life and housing, in partnership with UNB/ Ministry of Health.
In an age of corporate-dominated media, the MST has developed outlets for their own voices and perspectives:
• Sem Terra Journal– The MST's newspaper is one of the longest uninterrupted published journals in a popular movement and was established over 2 decades ago;
• Radio - MST works with 158 community and university radio stations, and medium range radio transmitters;
• Website– On the Internet, since 1996, the MST is present on its website, which receives an average of 1000 daily visits: www.mst.org.br;
• Sem Terra Magazine – A bimonthly magazine, which covers issue related to economy, politics, culture, and social movements nationally and internationally
Violations of human rights, such as imprisonments, assassinations, torture, death threats, and violent expulsions are constant events suffered by landless rural workers. The Human Rights Sector is responsible for denouncing those violations along with national and international human rights organizations:
• Training on fundamental essential human rights of Brazilian citizens and agricultural legislation in the MST’s diverse courses and gatherings;
• Public legal assistance network composed of a team of 500 attorneys across Brazil.
The MST has established a variety of relationships at the international level with movements and organizations that carry out popular struggles in their countries of origin.
By means of the Latin American Congress of Peasant Organizations (CLOC), the MST joins with peasant movements carrying out common struggles and establishing diverse exchange experiences and training. On the worldwide level we participate in the Via Campesina, which brings together diverse rural movements that struggle for food sovereignty, agrarian reform and agricultural policies appropriate for small scale production.
Along with other social movements, we participate in the World Social Forum and maintain relationships with people and other organizations by means of solidarity and support committees in diverse parts of the world.
At demonstrations, marches, occupations, imprisonments, and commemorations of victories and conquests, music, poetry and dance are presented, expressing and strengthening the Sem Terra cultural identity.
Some work of the Culture Collective includes:
• The TERRA exhibit by photographer Sebastião Salgado has visited 800 cities across the world.
• In 1998 the MST recorded its first CD, “Arte e Movimento", with music composed by Sem Terra militants and interpreted by established artists of Brazilian Popular Music (MPB)
• In 1999, in Palmeira das Missões, Rio Grande do Sul, the First Festival of Agrarian Reform Music took place. Sixteen songs from the Festival make up MSTs second CD: Canções que abraçam os Sonhos.
• In 2002, the National Week of Brazilian Culture and Agrarian Reform took place at the Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), with the purpose of recognizing the value of popular culture and reflecting about Agrarian Reform struggles;
• Partnership with Centro Teatro do Oprimido in forming “Coringas" or Theater of the Oppressed groups to act in settlement communities;
• Articulation with intellectual and artists who are friends of Agrarian Reform.
For a detailed presentation of the MST & Via Campesina's program/proposal for Agrarian Reform, go to:
Via Campesina Issue Paper #5: Agrarian Reform in the Context of Food Sovereignty, the Right to Food and Cultural Diversity
~
"an alternative based on family-run and campesino agriculture that has the support of rural social movements, church groups, environmentalists, the forty-five organizations in the National Forum for agrarian reform, and the widest array of representatives of rural workers and of the people in rural areas. This alternative model defends the organization and occupation of land of small and medium-sized farms; calls for aid for five million agricultural families in smallholdings; and urges the implementation of an agrarian reform that would guarantee land to four million landless families. It stands for intercropping and improved rotations as a way to better manage the soil and preserve the environment. It gives priority to the production of healthy food, without pesticides. It defends a type of agriculture that hires workers, creates jobs, and guarantees an income for rural workers. It stands for the use of environmentally friendly agricultural techniques that use conventional seed already adapted to our country, and it is against transgenics."
-Joao Pedro Stedile
Member of MST's National Coordinating Body
~~~
FROM:
The Neoliberal Agrarian Model in Brazil. by João Pedro Stedile
~~~
MONTHLY REVIEW
Volume 58, Number 8
February 2007
~~~
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0207stedile.htm
~~~
Many people who hear about the "Sem Terra" (Landless in Portuguese) imagine that we are the rural workers, sharecroppers or tenant farmers who do not have land.
"Sem Terra" has become a proper name – the name of workers who are organized to struggle for Agrarian Reform and the transformation of society.
"Sem Terra" has become a symbol for the rescue of dignity for men and women workers who were once called vagrants, kicked around from one corner to another. These workers have achieved their own identity by joining the struggle: I am a "Sem Terra" is stated with pride. The “Sem Terra" have become a respected citizen and the MST is nothing more than hundreds of thousands of "Sem Terra".
Today's society excludes the poorest of us, leaving us without work, without rights, and without dignity. In the MST, little by little, we have succeeded in rescuing our dignity by expressing our citizenship and registering ourselves and our children as citizens. Gathering our documentation and registering our children; to learn to read and write reality and to see their children going to School, getting a roof for their family.
But this is just a little. We will only achieve our objectives when Agrarian Reform becomes a struggle for all.
*Translated from a poster that hangs in many MST offices, settlements and encampments throughout Brazil.*
MST Commitments to the Earth and to Life
Human beings are precious, for their intelligence, work and organization can protect and preserve all forms of life.
1. Love and care for the Earth and all natural beings.
2. Always work to improve our understanding of nature and agriculture.
3. Produce food to eliminate hunger. Avoid monoculture and pesticides.
4. Preserve the existing forest and reforest new areas.
5. Take care of the springs, rivers, dams and lakes. Fight against the privatization of water.
6. Beautify the settlements and communities, planting flowers, medicinal herbs, greens, trees…
7. Take care of trash and oppose any practice that contaminates or harms the environment.
8. Practice solidarity and revolt against any injustice, aggression or exploration practiced against a person, the community or nature.
9. Fight against latifundia for all that possess land, bread, studies and freedom.
10. Never sell conquered land. Land is the ultimate commodity for future generations.
During the Fourth National Meeting of the MST in 1987, this flag became the symbol of the MST and is present in encampments and settlements, during marches and mobilizations, in commemorations and celebrations and in the houses of those who are passionate about the Movement.
The colors and design of the flag are significant:
The map of Brazil represents the MST as a national organization and that the struggle for agrarian reform should involve the entire country.
The man and the woman worker represent the need to engage men, women and entire families in the struggle.
The machete represents the tools of work, struggle, and resistance of the Brazilian landless. [The word is facão. While "knife" in Portuguese is faca, the Brazilian facão is a very large knife similar to a cutlass.--Trans.]
The color white represents the peace for which we fight, which can only be won when there is social justice for all.
The color red represents the blood that flows in our veins and our will to fight for agrarian reform and the transformation of society.
The color black represents our homage to all those workers who have already fallen in the struggle for a new society.
The color green represents the hope for victory for every unproductive large land holding we will win.
The History of the MST
*translated from www.mst.org.br on February 12, 2003
Brazil’s Landless Worker's Movement was born from the concrete, isolated struggles for land that rural workers were developing in southern Brazil at the end of the 1970's. Brazil was going through a politically opening process towards the end of the military regime. Brazilian capitalism was not able to alleviate the existing contradictions that blocked progress in the countryside. Land concentration, the expulsion of the poor from rural areas and the modernization of agriculture persisted, while a mass exodus to the cities and the policies of colonization entered a crisis period. In this context, various concrete struggles slowly began to surface. From these developments, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or the Movement of Rural Landless Workers was born and structured with the Encruzilhada Natalino encampment in Ronda Alta, Rio Grande do Sul and the Landless Farmer Movement of Western Paraná (Mastro) as its origins.
The MST was officially founded in 1984, during the 1st Meeting of the Landless Rural Workers in Cascavel, Paraná. The following year, the MST officially organized itself at the national level at the 1st National Congress of the Landless.
This version of the story makes the MST's beginnings seem simple, but the vision for an MST goes back before 1984 and involves much more than just one person’s ideas. This history begins during the end of the 1970s, when a military dictatorship ruled Brazil. The country lived under the manner of the “Brazilian Miracle", but for the rural poor, it was more like the “Brazilian Plague": unemployment and migration of workers from rural to urban areas. The intense mechanization of agriculture, which was introduced under the military governments, left no place for salaried farmworkers, renters or sharecroppers.
There were rural workers, however, who believed that they could organize themselves and defend their rights to work the land. As a result, on October 7, 1979, landless farmers from the state of Rio Grande do Sul occupied the Macali land in Ronda Alta.
At the same time, similar struggles were taking place in other Southern states such as Mato Grosso and São Paulo. In each state, rural workers were carrying out occupations and news of these occupations spread across the country. The Brazil society supported these actions and the landless occupations became part of the push for democracy throughout the country.
The MST, however, is not the first movement in the struggle for land in Brazil, nor is it the first in Latin America. Much earlier, farming families had organized themselves in search of land and better living and working conditions. We can cite the following examples: from 1950 to 1964, the Peasant Leagues (Ligas Camponesas) and MASTER (Movimento dos Agricultores Sem Terra or the Landless Farmers’ Movement); and at the end of the 19th century, Canudos and Contestado. The Mexican Revolution during the beginning of the 20th century and the Cuban Revolution of 1959, both of which carried forth the idea of “land for those who work it. These and other struggles inspire the MST to continue fighting for a Brazil with more equitable land ownership ? a Brazil without latifúndios (large land tracts with a single owner).
Little by little, the MST began to understand that winning land was important, but not enough. They also need access to credit, housing, technical assistance, schools, healthcare and other needs that a landless family must have met. Somehow landless families needed to survive without very much to start with. In addition, the MST discovered that the struggle was not just against the Brazilian latifúndio, but also against the neoliberal economic model.
From this initial work, the MST went on to organize more encampments and occupations of large farms (or fazendas) and headquarters of public and multinational entities, as well as to eliminate fields of genetically modified crops, to carry out marches, hunger strikes and other political actions.
One such event was the National March for Employment, Justice and Agrarian Reform, where marchers simultaneously left various states and arrived in the capital city of Brasília on April 17, 1997 (exactly one year after the massacre of 19 workers in Eldorado dos Carajás, Pará). Another example is the 4th National Congress also held in Brasília, where 11,000 landless Brazilians participated in August 2000. These events are still in the minds of the Brazilian people, in a time when agrarian reform is associated with the false promises of the federal government.
Today, the MST is active in 23 states of Brazil’s 27 states and involves more than 1.5 million people. About 350,000 families have been settled onto their own land through this struggle, and another 80,000 live in encampments awaiting the governments recognition.
If we look at the numbers, we can confirm that agrarian reform works. Today, there are about 400 associations in the areas of production, commercialization and services, 49 Agricultural and Cattle-raising Cooperatives (CPA) with participating 2,299 families, 32 Service Cooperatives with 11,174 direct partners, two Regional Commercialization Cooperatives and 3 Credit Cooperatives with 6,521 members.
There are 96 small and medium-sized cooperatives that process fruit, vegetables, dairy products, grains, coffee, meat, and sweets. Such MST economic enterprises generate employment, income, and revenue that indirectly benefit about 700 small towns in Brazilís interior.
Connected to production is education: about 160,000 children study from 1st to 4th grade in the 1800 public schools on MST settlements. About 3900 educators paid by the town are developing a pedagogy specifically for the rural MST schools. In conjunction with UNESCO and more than 50 universities, the MST is developing a literacy program for approximately 19,000 teenagers and adults in the settlements.
There are currently Education and Teaching courses at seven universities (Para, ParaÌba, Sergipe, Espirito Santo, Mato Grasso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Rio Grande do Sul) to train new teachers. In addition, the JosuÈ de Castro School in VeranÛpolis, Rio Grande do Sul is collaborating by providing training to students in the management of settlements and cooperatives, in order to train them with skills for the work being developed in settlements. Also in 2001, a Nursing course was started, and in 2002, a Communications course for MST participants was added.
With the support of the Brazilian Minister of the Environment, the MST developed an Environmental Education program for leaders, teachers, and technical experts in the settlements. With the help of photographer Sebasti„o Salgado, we are planning a technical environmental school in the town of AimorÈs, Minas Gerais. Lastly, in collaboration with the Cuban government, 48 MST members are currently studying medicine at the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba.
MST families are conscious of the need to preserve the natural environment and human health. Accordingly, in September of 1999, landless families introduced Bionatur seeds, produced without any pesticides, herbicides, or other chemicals. Families have also worked to preserve forests, such as in Pontal do Paranapanema (S„o Paulo), and to produce herbal medicines. To show their solidarity with those living in poverty and suffering because of natural disasters, MST members sent seeds to both Venezuela and Cuba.
February 4th, 2002, marked the beginning of the MST's participation in the opening of the Continental Campaign against the FTAA. MST members marched among more than 50,000 people during the World Social Forum, a march organized by both Via Campesina (an international rural worker organization) and Via Campesina of Brazil (a network of various rural worker movements). The campaign was organized nationally by various groups, movements, and religious organizations, from both rural and urban areas. The campaign saw its beginning during the National Plebiscite against the FTAA, when more than 10 million people voiced their opposition to the North American project to dominate the Americas.
In order to show its international concern and solidarity with all oppressed people living in poverty, three members of Via Campesina (including one from the MST) spent three weeks with Yasser Arafat in Palestine during the month of April. In Brazil, landless MST families have promoted various activities to show their solidarity with the Palestinian community, calling for peace and an end to the Israeli attacks. The MST was able to send 100 soccer balls produced by MST members to Palestinian children.
The MST is not isolated in its struggle for a free Brazil and a free Latin America. The MST works in conjunction with various rural worker movements and urban movements throughout Brazil. In addition, the MST continues to stay in contact with other international movements and other nations that embrace the same cause. One such example is Cuba, which has taught us major lessons about cooperative learning.
Together with all of the Latin American rural worker movements, the MST is part of CLOC (Latin American Coordination of Rural Worker Organizations). CLOC began in 1992 with protests and demonstrations during the 500-year anniversary of the invasion of Latin America.
During Brazil's National Week of Culture (March 18-24, 2002) in Rio de Janeiro, the Uruguayan musician Daniel Viglietti performed to pay homage to Latin America. Viglietti writes and performs songs supporting social protest and is known as the author of the song "A desalambar." Also during this week, the MST appealed to the sympathy and support of the Rio de Janeiro community by holding a forum in conjunction with UERJ (State University of Rio de Janeiro). The forum included days of debate around culture and agriculture and cultural presentations, highlighting the assets of the Brazilian people. From all over Brazil, MST members from encampments and settlements came together to participate in the forum and show the fruits of true agrarian reform.
Today the MST continues with its fight for agrarian reform, for a free, sovereign and egalitarian Brazil, and for a continent free from the FTAA.
History of MST Slogans
1979-1983:
TERRA PARA QUEM NELA TRABALHA
Land for Those Who Work on It
1984-1988:
SEM REFORMA AGRARIA NAO HAVERA DEMOCRACIA E Só ocupaçao é a soluçao !
Without Land Reform, there will be no democracy & land occupation is the only solution
1988-1995:
OCUPAR, PRODUZIR, RESISTIR !
Occupy, Produce and Resist!
1995-2000:
Reforma agraria: Uma luta de todos !
Agrarian Reform: A fight for all!
2000-2007:
Reforma Agraria: Por um Brasil Sem Latifundios!
Agrarian Reform: for a Brazil without Large Plantations!
2007-2012:
Reforma Agraria: Por Justica Social e Soberania Popular!
Agrarian Reform: For Social Justice & Popular Sovereignty!
**In general these slogans are discussed locally and then approved at National Meetings and at the National Congress (MST major mtg every 5 years).
The Bionatur Network for Agro-ecological Seeds (or in Portuguese Rede Bionatur de Sementes Agroecológicas) is one of the strategic tools that the MST organized for the development of the actions of its Seeds Campaign and the promotion of agro-ecology.
(Bionatur is the MST’s own organic seed producer. Organic farmers who after two harvests that have been cultivated with natural products, without use of chemicals, can be classified as organic. These farmers, many members of Brazil’s Landless Movement, will be able to sell them to the movement’s own organic seed producer, Bionatur. The Bionatural Network offers an alternative to the use of genetically-modified seeds and chemical farming.)
The embryo of Bionatur germinated, in 1997, with initiatives to organically produce horticultural seeds in the southern half of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, more specifically in the regions of Hulha Negra and Candiota Mineral. The initiatives were co-coordinated by COOPERAL (Cooperativa Regional dos Agricultores Assentados, the Board of Regional Cooperatives of Agricultural Settlements). COOPERAL sought to construct alternatives to the process of industrial integration of agriculture based on technological models of agro-chemical development promoted by the seed companies in the region. Coincidently, this region is home to the 10 largest national and international companies in the country, which spend about US$75 million [annually] to produce and control a market of predominantly horticultural hybrids to the detriment of [the production and availability of] natural seed varieties.
The seed-producing companies located in this region because of its superior topsoil and a climate ideal for the production of high quality species of seeds, which require cold temperatures followed by higher temperatures and lower humidity in the spring and summer to reproduce.
In the period 1997-2002, the COOPERAL was in charge of the process of organizing Bionatur. In 2003, with the advent of the Seeds Campaign, the support and coordination of Bionatur passed to the National Collective’s Sector of Production, under the auspices of the MST, which reorganized it into Rede Bionatur de Sementes Agroecológicas. This initiative formalized Bionatur’s already existing presence in diverse cities throughout the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, Minas Gerais and in various phases of formation in Mato Grosso, Goiás, District Federal and Sergipe. Together they yielded a harvest in 2004 of approximately 7.0 tons of seed, made up of more than 90 varieties of plants, all organic.
CHARACTERISTICS OF VIA CAMPESINA
WHAT IS VIA CAMPESINA?
Via Campesina is an international movement that coordinates organizations of peasants, small and medium-sized farmers, farm workers, rural women, and indigenous communities of Asia, Africa, America, and Europe.
It is an autonomous, pluralist movement, without political or economical ties of any type. It is made up of national and regional organizations whose autonomy is carefully respected.
It is organized in eight regions: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast and Southeast Asia, South Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Central America and South America. Other regions in Africa will soon be added.
HOW WAS VIA CAMPESINA BORN?
Via Campesina originated in April 1992, when various rural leaders from Central America, North America, and Europe came together in Manágua, Nicarágua in the context of the Congress of the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers (National Union of Farmers and Cattlemen–UNAG). In May 1993, the First Conference of Via Campesina was held in Mons, Belgium, during which the world-wide organization was constituted and the first strategic lines of work were defined, along with their structures.
The second international conference was held in Tlaxcala, México, in April 1996. Thirty seven countries and 69 national and regional organizations were present. They analyzed a series of topics that are of central concern to the small and medium-sized producers such as: food sovereignity, agrarian reform, credit and the external debt, technology, participation of women, and rural development, among other topics.
During the Second Conference, April 17 was declared the International Day of Farmers’ Struggle, in homage to the comrades who fell in the massacre of Eldorado dos Carajás.
The Third Conference took place in Bangalore, India with the participation of over 100 delegates from peasant organizations in 40 countries.
Via Campesina is in a process of expanding and consolidating. By its nature it is a politically complex, multicultural organization covering a broad geographical range, projecting itself as an organization of the highest representation of small and medium-sized producers at a world-wide level.
Via Campesina develops its work from the following axes of action: Organizational, Political, Economic, Communication, Gender, Training, and Technology.
For each of these axes, objectives and priorities are defined:
- Joint work and strengthening of its affiliated organizations
- Work to pressure the centers of power and decision-making of governmental and multilateral organizations to reorient economic and agricultural policies that affect small and medium-sized producers
- Strengthening of women’s participation in the social, economic, political, and cultural aspects
- Formulation of proposals about important topics such as Agrarian Reform, Food Sovereignty, Production, Trade, Research, Genetic Resources, Biodiversity, Environment, and Gender.
The Friends of the MST (FMST) is a network of individuals and organizations that support the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) in the struggle for social and economic justice while securing respect for human rights. The FMST works to build solidarity and educate the public in the US and English-speaking world in order to raise the international profile of the MST. The FMST has a direct relationship to the MST and is a fiscally sponsored project of Global Exchange.
The objectives of the FMST are to:
(1) organize support for MST’s economic, social and political development projects;
(2) make background information, news and ways to get involved accessible via the internet, print materials and events;
(3) build a network capable of responding to the highest priority political and human rights alerts while giving strength to the global struggle for justice and;
(4) offering support with communication and coordination between the MST and US-based groups interested in the MST.
See photos of the May 2005 MST march to Brasilia.