[5th National Congress] AP Reports: MST Criticizes Brazil Government's Ties to Agribusiness

Farm workers' movement criticizes Brazil government's ties to agribusiness

The Associated Press
Published: June 13, 2007

BRASILIA, Brazil: Land reform activists on Wednesday criticized President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government for its close ties to agribusiness and for not including small farmers in Brazil's biofuel program.

One of the main leaders of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement, or MST, Joao Pedro Stedile, said agribusiness was agrarian reform's main enemy in Brazil.

"Agribusiness is the beast born of the marriage between foreign capital and rich Brazilian landowners," Stedile told thousands of delegates at the Fifth National Congress of the MST. "It is a marriage which the Brazilian government helps sustain."

Officials at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia said the government had no comment on Stedile's remarks, and Silva was not invited to the MST congress.

The MST has gained international notoriety for its high-profile and organized invasions of land it deems unproductive to pressure the government to accelerate land reform in a country with one of the world's most uneven distributions of land.

About 3.5 percent of Brazil's landowners hold 56 percent of the arable terrain while the poorest 40 percent own a scant 1 percent.

"With the government's help, agribusiness wants to transform us into mere exporters of raw materials," said Gilmar Mauro, another MST leader. "No country has ever developed by just exporting raw materials."

He said the government's biofuel program also favors agribusiness "because it has easier access to the technology needed."

"The government has not drawn up policies to encourage small farmers to involve themselves in the production of biofuels," Mauro said.

The government claims that at least 63,000 families of small farmers have benefited from a series of tax incentives to produce palm tree and castor seeds used to make biodiesel.
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Article originally available at
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/13/america/LA-GEN-Brazil-Landless...