The MST is a national movement, organized in 23 Brazilian States. Since 1984, the MST has been able to win land for approximately 250 thousand families, who live in 1,600 settlements. Ours is a reality in which landownwership is highly concentrated: 1% of landowners own half of the land, while 4.8 million families are destitute of land. In this scenario, MST is also articulating 70,000 families who survive in 500 encampments scattered over Brazil.

During its 15 years of existence MST won more than land; it won dignity and citizenship for the landless, and these are concrete results that make for better living conditions for at least a million people. Following are some of our achievements.

1. Production

• We have now in the settlements around 400 associations for production, trading and services. There are also 49 cooperatives for meat, dairy products and agricultural products (CPA), which provide work for 20 thousand associated families; 32 servicing cooperatives, with 11,174 direct associates; two regional cooperatives for trading; and two credit cooperatives, with 6,113 associates.

• We keep 96 small and medium-sized agroindustries, which process fruits and vegetables, dairy, grains, coffee, meat and sweets.

• These MST economic enterprises are generating employment, income and revenues which indirectly benefit 700 small municipalities in the Brazilian inland. In order to better develop the production areas, MST created SCA – The Settlers Cooperative System, which coordinates the demands coming from the production sector.

• The SCA is active in the formation of technicians and also in the management of the cooperatives, analyzing the market and looking into the economic viability of the investments that are made. Its juridical representative is CONCRAB – the Confederation of Agrarian Reform Cooperatives of Brazil.

• Currently there are some 450 technicians working at the settlements, from agronomers to social workers. They were finally officially assigned by INCRA after a lot of pressure and occupation of INCRA buildings. They are selected and co-ordinated by MST, at least in the settlements connected with the movement.

• Technical Courses:
  • Middle Level Course: formation of technicians able to work as Cooperative Administrators. The course is called TAC and is held at ITERRA-Institute, in the town of Veranópolis/RS. At the moment we have 3 active classes (the 5th, 6th and 7th).

  • Middle Level Course (known as TAA): formation of technicians able to work as Settlement Administrators. The first class has just started at ITERRA-Institute.

  • Course for specialized knowledge in the administration of cooperatives, called CEACOOP: now in its second class at ITERRA-Institute, it is being taught in partnership with the Universities of Brasília (UnB) and Campinas (UNICAMP).

2. Education

Thanks to an agreement with UNESCO, 1,200 MST educators are teaching literacy classes to 25 thousand adults and youths.MST built and equipped 250 day care centers, called Cirandas Infantis, thus enabling the mothers of toddlers to go to work and also to attend state and national MST activities.

Training Courses for Educators:

• Teacher training (magistério): Course at the Instituto Técnico de Capacitação e Pesquisa da Reforma Agrária (ITERRA) in Veranópolis/RS, 7th class.5. Teacher training (magistério): Course in partnership with the Federal University of Paraíba, 1th class.6. Teacher training (magistério): Course in partnership with the State University of Mato Grosso do Sul, 1st class.

• Pedagogia da Terra (Land Pedagogy): Course in partnership with Unijuí, which also prepares teachers for 5th to 8th grade classes, 1st class.

• Pedagogia da Terra (Land Pedagogy): Course in partnership with the State University of Mato Grosso, 1st class.

• Pedagogia da Terra (Land Pedagogy): Course in partnership with the Federal University of Espírito Santo, 1st class.

• Adult school: Primary education for workers of the municipality of Veranópolis and vicinity (the main beneficiaries are urban workers), 1st class.

• Adult school: Secondary education for the ame workers as above, 2nd class.

• Iterra:

  ITERRA (Escola Técnica Josué de Castro) is a middle level school kept by MST in classrooms made available by the Catholic Capuchinhos Congregation, in Veranópolis/RS. The courses are taught in an alternating fashion, so that the students stay in school for 2 months of "theory", then go back to their settlements to develop practical pedagogical activities.

  The school is run in the manner of a cooperative: not only do the students perform all maintenance work, but they also run all activities in full-fledged cooperative way.

• MST University Students:

  MST stimulates and tries to make it possible for individual students to enter university and thus start traditional careers. We have by now more than 100 students going to several Brazilian universities, besides those attending classes thanks to a partnership with a private University. There are also 25 medicine students at the Escuela Latino-Americana, in Cuba. We already have several children of settlers who have received higher education and now work with the MST as lawyers, journalists, teachers, researchers and agronomers.

3. Women and the Gender Issue

The Brazilian countryside is male-centered as a reflection of society as a whole, and we can see that in the movement there is still a long way to go to further gender equality. MST started to discuss this issue because of the pressure exerted by the courageous and active participation of women, who have always had a fundamental role during the ocupation of land. Afterwards, in the settlements, the women have a tendency to "go back" to their customary role of keeper of the house, of the children, and of the small domestic animals.

• Reflecting upon this, women started to perceive that they can play different roles in the fight for agrarian reform and also within MST. Today we have 10 women at our highest leadership level, among a total of 22. In the State of Pernambuco, 5 women preside cooperatives. In São Paulo, a woman presides the State Central of Cooperatives of the Settled.

• In order that the Gender Issue should not remain restricted to the discussion among women, a National Collective for Gender was created in which men and women participate in discussions, writing, and specific activities of the area, such as courses, workshops and meetings for couples.

• Changes in the making: More women at the decision-making level.
  • Small investments agreed upon in the cooperatives and in the associations, go to the betterment of life conditions ("inside the house"), where the woman decides: electricity, laundries, dining commons, day care centers. Men look more often after investments "out of the house", such as barns, vehicles, bigger cooperatives, etc.

  • Therefore, the theme "Discussions on Gender and Women's Issues" shall run across all MST courses and meetings.

  • In all countrywide meetings, courses, and seminars, there must be day care centers (Ciranda Infantil) in order to allow the full participation of women.

4. Communication

• Jornal Sem Terra is one of the newspapers with the longest life among popular movements. It has been issued without interruption for more than 15 years. Dozens of "popular reporters" have been trained by the MST to register, write and send out news and announcements that have enabled so far the newspaper and the movement to go on existing.

• Community Radios and Radio Programs: among peasants, these tools are basic and crucial. MST now coordinates 30 community radios and 5 radio shows in the encampments and settlements. They broadcast news and announcements from the point of view of the struggle of our people for justice and peace for all.

• Websites: the MST's main website is found at www.mst.org.br. (In the USA, Friends of the MST can be found at www.mstbrazil.org.)

5. Culture

• MST developed and affirmed its cultural identity by the expression "landless" (Sem Terra) and by its non-violent direct action in the form of land occupations .We are proud of our red banner depicting us with our working tools. We can perceive today how proud any one of our militants is of being a part of it all, of being Sem Terra.

• Culture is a new area that we starting to probe deeper into. It has certainly always been unconsciously present and it accounts for the successful outcome of many MST initiatives, in the fight for land, justice and dignity.

• We have literally hundreds of poets, musicians, singers, entertainers, and popular composers. Music, dance, songs and a poetic outlook on life follow us in our demosntrations, our long marches, our peaceful land occupations. They go into the unlawful imprisonment and torture places of our militants, and they commemorate their release. Our songs keep famine away and courage alive.

• Sebastião Salgado's Terra exhibit has toured the world. More than 800 cities worldwide went to see the exhibition and became acquainted with the images of MST's relentless spirit of peaceful resistance. The exhibition was a way to show our culture and our values, affirming our identity.

• MST has recently released the first CD with songs which tell a bit about our land and the fight to see it lawfully and equally distributed. Many of the singers come from our own ranks, but many Brazilian folk and popular singers contributed too. The songs bring our happy and also our sorrowful moments to life – and they are contagious!

• In February 1999, in the small town called Palmeiras das Missões/RS, MST staged its first National Festival of Agrarian Reform Music. The best songs (16) will be recorded in a CD due to come out soon. Each night the Festival gathered around 4,000 people to listen, sing, dance and celebrate with various well-known Brazilian singers, who came to lend their prestige and their enthusiasm to the festivities.

6. Human Rights

• Motivated by the growing number of murders, beatings, unlawful arrests and even sentencing of landless militants, the movement created its Human Rights Sector. It is coordinated by a lawyer who is actually the son of a settled family in the State of Paraná. By now 40 volunteer lawyers are part of it. Although they belong officially to other organizations, they lend their support in the most difficult moments of repression, death, torture and flagrant violation of the law against the resisting landless.

• The MST Human Rights Sector works towards disseminating information and also formation on the basic rights of the citizen in Brazil, on Brazilian law in general, and laws specifically dealing with the agrarian issue. This happens usually during ordinary MST courses and meetings of all sectors.

• The Human Rights Sector also informs the Brazilian and foreign public and media about human rights violations. Recently, at a United Nations meeting, MST was represented by the Franciscan and Domican Foundation, denouncing the ongoing human rights violations perpetrated by the Brazilian Government.

7. International Relations

• Many are the invitations made and the trips suggested to the MST in order that our militants travel and share our experience abroad. For MST the priority lies in our relationship with our Latin American neighbours, their popular organizations and movements, since they fight as we do for the right to life and land, organizing the people for massive, collective non-violent civil disobedience.

• Through CLOC (Latin-American Co-ordination of Peasant Organizations) MST articulates itself among the Campesino Movement, establishing exchanges of experiences, formation and empowerment courses.

• On the world scenario, the MST participates in Via Campesina, which articulates 90 peasant organizations in 60 countries in the non-violent fight for land, agrarian reform and agrarian policies that are adequate to small family farming and production (as opposed to large cash crops).

• Recently some MST representatives visited Africa and thus started an exchange in the areas of education and cooperativism. In our understanding, we must articulate more and more within the South-South network of relationships, especially with those popular movements who fight for a transformation of the neoliberal system actually engulfing us.

8. Youth

• MST youth are in the thousands: theirs is the highest number of militants. As such they organize themselves whenever possible, in festivals and specific meetings.

• Many of our young people go to school, and our goal is to get them all there. Just recently one thousand youths got together for 10 days, to attend an intensive course taught thanks to a partnership with 3 Brazilian Universities (Pará, Juiz de Fora and Campinas). During 10 packed days they studied Brazilian history, the fight for land and other themes directly related to their age.

• MST gives high priority to the education of our youth. We reserve for them the greatest number of seats in our schools and in our formal and informal courses. This so happens because the official education model offers them scarce opportunity to attend school and even lesser opportunities for getting a job. The young face a serious survival crisis these days, more so in the countryside.

9. The Environment

• This constitutes also a relatively new area within MST activities. Led by our growing concern about the environmental devastation and widespread pollution the existing neoliberal system imposes, we created EMA (Equipe do Meio Ambiente), which is our National Collective on the Environment . It deals with MST policies regarding sustainable organic agriculture. EMA produces papers and studies and organizes discussions about environmental problems, looking for solutions.

• We already have a few significant experiences:
  • The Environmental Education Program, which is a program partly supported by the Secretary for Environment, targeting leaders, teachers and the young people living in the settlements.

  • In 1999 we had in Brasilia the first national conference gathering environmentalist entities and movements, engaged in the fight for agrarian reform. The goal was to agree on common strategies of action in view of the need for respecting the environment as part of the struggle for agrarian reform.

  • MST is also participating in an initiative launched by Sebastião Salgado: to build in Aimorés, in the State of Minas Gerais, a Technical Environmental School (Escola Técnica Ambientalista).

  • Production of BIONATUR agroecological seeds. In September 1999 there was the official ceremony of presentation of the BIONATUR seeds. Various kinds of vegetables, among them onions and carrots, were produced without pesticides or chemical substances of any kind, in a natural and healthy process of agriculture. The seeds are being produced by the COOPERAL Cooperative, in the MST settlement of the municipality of Hulha Negra, in Santa Catarina. This novelty has been registered in a video and MST plans to reproduce the same experience in other settlements, and also to share the experience with other land movements and organizations in Latin America.

  • In the region known as Pontal do Paranapanema, there is a study going on to preserve the remainder of the local Atlantic Forest, to reforest a large area with native species and generally to practice agriculture respecting the existing ecosystem.

• MST is also active in:
  • The ecological production of coffee in the State of Espírito Santo.
  • The ecological production of rice in the State of Rio Grande do Sul.
  • The preservation of the Forest in the Pontal do Paranapanema (São Paulo) and reforestation.
  • The production of medicinal herbs (in various Brazilian States)

13. Health care

• The training of health agents.

• A program for the prevention of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, supported by the Secretary for Health.

• A program called Land and Health, dealing with medicinal plants (support from FIOCRUZ, Petrobras, and the Secretary for Health is being negotiated.

• A study attempting to diagnose the health situation in the encampments and settlements, to be edited by the Secretary for Health. The research was conducted by the MST and the University of Brasilia.