News and Updates: General
World transformations in recent years have resulted in the centralization of capital accumulation in the financial sphere and for transnational corporations. These transformations have had serious consequences and resulted in growing conflicts between two worlds of agricultural production. The capitalist model is one of an alliance between...
At the beginning of June, the special parliamentary committee which is discussing changes to the Forest Code should issue its final report of changes in the legislation. Because of the absence of a full debate, we denounce the report as serving only the interests of the rural caucus. They are planning to consolidate the deforestation that...
We would like to thank everyone who has shown their solidarity with our movement and contributed towards the denunciations against the attack on democracy, promoted by the reactionary sectors of the country. The announcement of the dismissal of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry against the MST is a sign of the isolation of rural parties,...
The concentration of land in Brazil continues to be among the highest in the world. In the past few years, the agro-exporter model, based in agribusiness, not only compounded this concentration, but also aggravated the economic and social problems generated by it. For the sake of the monocultural farming of sugar cane for combustion, eucalyptus...
Women from La Via Campesina mobilized last week on March 8th for International Women’s Day. The fight is our historic tool to denounce the agribusiness model which is socially unjust and environmentally unsustainable. We also question the role of the State, which in the wake of a deep structural economic crisis, chooses to aid big private...
In our 13th National Meeting we received the support of many friends of the Agrarian Reform movement. On the 24th, representatives from the political left, trade organizations, churches, intellectuals, leaders and activists from Brazil and other countries met to discuss politics. Our meeting brought together more than 1,500 activists from the...
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 countryside in Sao Paulo state. Among fields of sugar cane, 120 landless rural families have taken over an area of state-owned land as part of a campaign...
In 2008, we wrote yet another chapter about the struggle between the two disputing projects in Brazilian agriculture. On one side, small and mid-sized agriculture that produces food for the Brazilian family table. On the other, the big national and transnational corporations and finance capital that produce soy, eucalyptus, sugar cane, and...
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 social and economic picture and proposals to overcome the worldwide economic crisis. We demand that the country change the macroeconomic policy of...
Agrarian Reform has reached a standstill all over Brazil. It was for this reason that, in July, MST workers from 12 Brazilian states protested in the streets, at INCRA (National Institute of Agrarian Colonization and Reform) headquarters, and farms, demanding the settlement of the 140,000 encamped families and public funding for the already...