April 17th marks the 29th anniversary of the Eldorado de Carajás Massacre
MST marks the Day of Struggle for Agrarian Reform with more than 50 mobilizations throughout the country
The Massacre at Eldorado de Carajas
MST women release a Letter to society
MST pressures the government with occupations in Brazil
14th Encampment of Women Against Capital
Against capital and patriarchy, MST women hold day of struggle
Agroecology and Reforestation
Program of Plantar Árvores: Plant 100 million trees in ten years in rural schools, cooperatives, technical training centers, squares, avenues and cities, strengthen the production of healthy food in MST settlements and encampments, denounce the destructive model of agribusiness and its impacts on the environment.
These are some of the objectives of the National Plan to Plant Trees, Produce Healthy Food, launched in 2020 by the MST throughout Brazil.
The Plan is a space for articulation, training, political organization and broad debate, reaffirming:
• People’s Agrarian Reform* and the defense of their territories and family farming;
• Food Sovereignty as a radical change in the direction of food production and distribution, providing access to healthy food especially for the most vulnerable populations, as a way of promoting preventive health in the country that uses the most pesticides in the world;
• Agroecology, which is based on sociobiodiversity, the solidarity economy and respect for traditional knowledge and local/regional cultures; and
• The care of Common Goods, such as water, minerals, land and biodiversity, which are finite natural resources and, therefore, common to all human beings (environmental preservation).
Planting trees and producing healthy food are actions that the MST has historically developed, and in this special edition you will have access to a variety of information about the National Plan, in an exclusive manner. With this, the MST believes that it will make a great contribution to society and to Brazilian biomes.
Click here for more information on the MST's Program of Agroecology and Reforestation
MST debates environmental issues during 34th State Meeting in São Paulo
The environmental issue is directly linked to the agrarian issue. In this historical time, faced with the accelerated pace of plundering of nature that serves to accumulate capital, there are no effective solutions to the ecological crisis other than through people’s agrarian reform.
Therefore, confronting the latifundia and large corporations that profit from the destruction of common goods is a central task in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggle.
The settlement where two MST activists were murdered is a reference in agroecology
The Olga Benário settlement, created in 2006, is home to more than 50 families of workers who practice diversified agriculture, working in the production of cassava, sugar cane, vegetables, livestock and food for the local market and for subsistence. Agroecological production is highlighted, especially through the implementation of Agroforestry Systems (SAFs) that integrate vegetables, native trees from the Atlantic Forest biome and practices such as collecting forest seeds and green manure.
The Political Organization of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST)
This dossier focuses on the MST’s tactics and forms of organization and why it is the only peasant social movement in Brazil’s history that has managed to survive for over a decade in the face of the political, economic, and military power of Brazil’s large landowners
Read the full report including downloads of the dossier in English and Spanish
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This Land is Our Land
This article is from the Nation magazine, May 2025.
If you went to a trendy restaurant in São Paulo in 2021 or 2022, you were likely to see the red hat. If you went to Mamba Negra, the underground rave with DJs visiting from Berlin, or to enough art gallery openings—in short, if you hung around the country’s progressive cultural elite—you were likely to see the red hat.
The hat in question is a scarlet baseball cap depicting a man and a woman emerging from a green map of Brazil. The man raises a machete high above his head—ready to tend to the crops or, if you prefer, to go to battle. The image has been the logo of Brazil’s Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), known in English as the Landless Workers’ Movement, since shortly after its founding in 1984.
The MST pushes for land redistribution by occupying plots controlled by the country’s traditional elites or by upstart capitalists profiting from an agricultural boom. The group depends on an article in the Brazilian Constitution that mandates that land must fulfill a “social function”; if its members deem that land is unproductive or being misused, they set up camp and fight for legal recognition of their settlements. Over four decades, the MST has become the largest social movement in Latin America and perhaps in the world. It comprises as many as 2 million people across the country and has been a consistent presence on the radical left wing of Brazilian politics.
News from FMST
Conjunctural analysis shows that the slow pace of Agrarian Reform and the prioritization of agribusiness deepen rural inequalities and worsen the food crisis in Brazil
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