In 2025, the MST (Landless Workers' Movement) made progress in food production, the mass adoption of agroecology, solidarity, tree planting, among other things; however, the main demands of Agrarian Reform remain stalled under this Lula government.
The year 2025 was a year of struggle, resistance for rights, and some achievements for popular movements in the countryside, such as the MST. After Lula's election in 2023, the collective strength of the working class's struggle is gradually growing again in society, moving us away from a time of darkness, misery, and hatred against the left's struggles for rights, social justice, and Agrarian Reform, in the case of the MST.
This was also the year in which Brazil managed to finalize the trial of those responsible for the coup plot, putting former president Jair Bolsonaro in jail and, for the first time in the country's history, some army generals, although Congress is already making every possible maneuver to reduce the sentences and impose an amnesty on this group of coup plotters. Bolsonaro, the main person responsible for the death of more than 600,000 people during the pandemic, was also defeated in his agenda of spreading hatred and repression against people’s movements and in his attempt to bury Agrarian Reform.
On the other hand, President Lula also faced blackmail from the President of the United States, Donald Trump, regarding the taxation of Brazilian products exported to the country. However, according to the federal government itself, 22% of Brazilian exports to the United States still remain subject to surcharges.
In an article from December 11, 2025, entitled "'Free Thinking' for a (PROBABLY) USEFUL warning," Gerson Teixeira highlights that in a global scenario of crisis of multilateralism and geopolitical instabilities, even with the strengthening of the far-right in the Brazilian National Congress, it is necessary to recognize that in his third term, President Lula has been making promising changes and rekindling the hope of the Brazilian people. “Among several achievements, the economy has sustained growth, with controlled inflation, full employment, a minimum wage with real gains, substantial increases in labor income, a ‘transformation’ in the international arena, diversification and greater vigor in social policies, and gigantic efforts for the reindustrialization of the country…,” summarizes Gerson.
Another central factor in the country's political situation was the shift to the left by the Lula government starting in July of this year, when it began to “confront” the National Congress. This provoked important changes in the balance of political forces and exposed the conservatism and the Congress's choice to legislate against Brazilian society and in favor of the elites, as emphasized by Gilmar Mauro, from the national leadership of the MST.
“This led to a complementary chapter, which was the popular mobilizations, both the September mobilizations and, subsequently, these recent mobilizations of the women's movement against femicide and the Bill on Sentencing Guidelines, which altered the political landscape in the last semester. This is an important warning for the government, but effectively, for the popular movement in general, that 2026 will not be easy, there is the possibility of a major confrontation in the near future, and we need to prepare for that,” warns Gilmar.
Advances of the MST and in the fight for Agrarian Reform
Producing healthy food in sufficient quantities to feed the people, without destroying nature and exploiting those who work the land, is one of the main challenges facing Brazilian society. It is in this context that 2025 presents itself as a year of important developments in strengthening and expanding agroecology, conceived as a strategy to increase the scale of diversified food production and guarantee real food on the tables of the population.
This production must be based on a relationship of care for the common goods of nature: the land, the water, the forests, and biodiversity. At the same time, it is fundamental that these initiatives promote the transformation of the working conditions of peasant men and women, ensuring access to technologies and socially produced goods that reduce the arduousness of manual labor and expand access to public policies, fundamental to strengthening the strategic task of feeding society.
Débora Nunes, from the National Directorate of the MST, explains that the Movement's choice of the agroecological production model has also generated food cultivated in a closer relationship of care for the common goods of nature. In addition to seeking solutions in access to technologies geared towards the reality of family and peasant agriculture to improve working conditions in the countryside and reduce the need for manual labor among peasants who produce healthy food, as well as in various initiatives to overcome difficulties in accessing public policies, strengthening the essential activity of feeding society.
These advances represent some symbolic and political achievements, such as the understanding by a segment of society that family farming and agrarian reform, through organizations like the MST, are the true actors that guarantee food on the tables of the population. “Producing healthy food is a political act and an act of love for our country. It means confronting hunger, caring for nature, and affirming that another social project is necessary, but this will only be possible by confronting inequalities and through popular organization,” the leader emphasizes.
The MST also actively practiced the solidarity of the Landless Workers' Movement throughout the year, through the donation of food and various other forms of support to families in vulnerable situations, such as the Solidarity Brigade in Paraná. One of the last activities of the year, which for 43 days carried out support actions for families affected by tornadoes in the Rio Bonito do Iguaçu region (Paraná), concluded with the celebration of the Solidarity Christmas of Hope on Friday (December 19), with the distribution of 30 tons of food and the organization of a collective Christmas dinner.
In 2025, through the actions of Mãos Solidárias (Solidarity Hands), MST families also developed permanent literacy programs for more than 10,000 people across the country, providing food and popular health services, working to combat hunger, strengthening urban and rural popular territories, building community ties, and boosting the fight for rights.
In this context, the Movement has also advanced in its collaborations with China, with organizations and governments in Brazil on some key initiatives, such as the implementation of agricultural machinery factories adapted to food production at all stages of the production process in the settlements, from planting to harvesting; in the production of bio-inputs and biopesticides, from simpler techniques to the implementation of bio-input production units in the territories of the Agrarian Reform, using Chinese technology. The objective of these units is to improve the soil and strengthen agroecological plantings, reducing the destruction and contamination of the soil practiced by agribusiness.
Articulated with the massification of Agroecology, environmental recovery has also been a priority for the Movement, advancing the National Plan to Plant Trees, Produce Healthy Food, with the expansion of the Journey of Nature and the construction of popular assemblies in defense of nature, advancing understanding of the environmental issue. Environmental brigades of young people were also organized, along with mural painting activities, exhibition spaces on the theme of "Paths of Agroecology," and photographic records ("Records of the Earth"), as part of the battle of ideas, as well as in the preparation and debate surrounding the People's Summit, and the implementation of nurseries, agroforestry systems, and environmental restoration of degraded areas was encouraged.
“We are experiencing the most overwhelming consequences of the environmental and climate crisis, which is why our Plan to Plant Trees and Produce Healthy Food is so necessary. Reforesting our territories means the possibility of harvesting water, cooling the environment with microclimates resulting from agroforestry that produces food and environmental regeneration; it is about nourishing the land and having healthy soils capable of responding to productive needs,” reports Débora.
Gilmar points out that the MST has been making progress in planting trees in Agrarian Reform areas. “We took the initiative to plant 100 million trees, even knowing that this will not solve the environmental issue. Because in addition to stopping emitting gases, it will be necessary to plant billions of trees. But we have already reached almost half of the goal, we are almost exceeding 50 million planted,” he emphasizes.
In the last period, the Landless Workers have developed actions aimed at strengthening food agro-industries throughout the country, focusing on expanding the circulation of production, reducing the loss of perishable foods, and adding value to the food produced. However, these initiatives face the logic of ultra-processed foods, which are causing an increase in diseases and deaths among the Brazilian population.
But what is the situation of Agrarian Reform today?
With the third term of the Lula government, Agrarian Reform is back on the Brazilian state's agenda, with some small advances, but without the concrete results promised by the government during the election period. “The achievements in this area are much more symbolic and political, related to society's recognition of the MST's struggle, our role in producing food, in preserving the common goods of nature, than effective achievements resulting from public policies of the Brazilian state,” emphasizes Débora Nunes.
In general, the demands of Agrarian Reform remain stagnant under this Lula government. Gilmar explains that Agrarian Reform is not and has not been "on the agenda." The most serious situation is the paralysis of expropriation of new lands for settlements, with very few areas expropriated. “The settlements in Brazil have been negligible in these three years of government. Two or three important symbolic issues have been resolved, as is the case in Minas Gerais and Paraná, but, in general, we have a number of areas stalled in the Civil House for purposes of expropriation for social interest or purchase. And with that, we have a series of problems with encampments that have been there for years, which have not yet been resolved,” points out Gilmar.
“Agrarian Reform is paralyzed due to the development of capital in agriculture and the hegemony of agribusiness. Agriculture has become a matter of accumulation and business, not food production. That is why it has this characteristic of class struggle. "Currently, the dispute is between two projects: either the agribusiness project or the Agrarian Reform," projects José Damasceno, from the national leadership of the MST (Landless Workers' Movement).
So, what the Lula government has been doing, once again, is regularizing families in old settlements, inflating the number of settled families as if they were new lots. This does not mean progress in the amount of land hectares destined for Agrarian Reform. Currently, the MST still has 100,000 families in encampments, which, added to other people’s movements, reaches 142,000 throughout the country, registered with the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), waiting for Agrarian Reform.
“The Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture (MDAAF) and Incra have not fulfilled their mission and task. When we talk about access to land, we are talking about families camped out, who can suffer evictions at any time. Facing hunger, the environmental crisis, and inequalities in Brazil necessarily involves advancing People’s Agrarian Reform, with the land fulfilling its social function and guaranteeing dignity for those who live and work in the countryside,” argues Débora.
Damasceno assesses that the number of camped families has increased in the last period, which demonstrates the demand for the democratization of land, with the creation of new Agrarian Reform settlements. “There is a need to immediately settle the 100,000 camped families, and especially the 65,000 families who have been in encampments for ten, 15, or even 30 years. The government needs to make progress in this regard,” he analyzes.
Débora emphasizes that it is also important to recognize that the country has resumed and created innovative and important public policies for Agrarian Reform, but these need to be strengthened and universalized to guarantee responses to the structural problems experienced by Brazilian society. However, several challenges remain that depend on the Brazilian state budget and political decisions by the Lula government and its administrators.
Contradictions of the Lula government: increase in pesticides and decrease in food production in the country
This year, the third Lula government has also shown some worrying contradictions regarding family farming and Agrarian Reform for the workers and peasants of the MST. One of the contradictions that stands out and is worrying is the increase in the release of new pesticides, since Brazil has become a world champion in the massive use of pesticides in agriculture.
Gilmar Mauro denounces that in this respect, the Lula government is breaking records compared to Bolsonaro, with the release of more than 700 different types of pesticides, which is very serious. “For some time now, we have been the country that uses the most pesticides in the world. So, in addition to exporting, along with commodities, fundamentally water and soil fertility, what remains here is the contamination of the soil and natural resources. This is an irresponsibility of Anvisa (Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency) and also of the government.”
Meanwhile, agribusiness continues to grab the largest share of public investments and subsidies, including in the international search for export markets, mainly for Brazilian agricultural commodities, facilitated by the Lula government. For example, in the 2025/2026 Harvest Plan, the Federal Government allocated a record R$ 516.2 billion to corporate agriculture, that is, to agribusiness, representing an increase of about 1.5% compared to the previous cycle, while for the 2025/2026 Family Farming Harvest Plan, only R$ 89 billion was allocated in credit through the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (Pronaf), for the production of basic foods, sustainability and ecological transition. The good news, however, was the transformation of Pronaf and the Family Farming Harvest Plan into law, guaranteeing the continuity and greater stability of the programs.
This inequality in the allocation of public resources is also a way of guaranteeing the hegemony of agribusiness, which continues to concentrate most of the best land and access to technology in agriculture. This has been reflected in the decrease in investments for Family Farming and Agrarian Reform, as well as in the decrease in food products that end up on the plates of Brazilians, such as rice, beans, cassava, and wheat, among others.
Based on data from the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), Gerson Teixeira points out that in twenty years, from the first Harvest Plan of the Lula government, in his first term (2003-2006), until 2024, there has been a significant drop in the total production of temporary crops, in terms of the volume of products such as: rice, beans, cassava, and wheat, which form the basis of the traditional Brazilian diet. “In 2004, this participation was 8.1% and, in 2024, it was 3.7%, which meant a drop of 4.4 percentage points, or 54.3%, in the period,” Gerson describes.
The allocation of agricultural credit accompanies this process of declining food production for the population and an increase in public resources to encourage the export of agribusiness products, which do not feed the population. “Pronaf is still quite centered in the south of the country, directed towards sectors that are linked to the export of products, therefore, to agribusiness. And see the contradiction from a political point of view: the rural poor, small-scale agriculture, the agriculture that produces food, and those who most support President Lula, are the ones who have benefited the least from public investments,” Gilmar questions.
Another dangerous paradox in this context is the increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods in the country. As the supply of traditional foods in the diet decreases, Brazilians consume more of these ultra-processed products, especially the poorest population, that is, the working classes.
“In short, the basis of the diet of a considerable portion of Brazilians has been guaranteed mainly by ultra-processed foods. It is no coincidence that in 2025, about 31% of the Brazilian adult population lives with obesity and 68% with excess weight (...). The projections are alarming and the cost will be increasingly higher for the SUS (Brazilian Unified Health System),” Gerson observes.
This occurs because, when the federal government fuels this inequality in agriculture, guaranteeing more public resources to agribusiness, which does not produce food, and does not reverse this balance by significantly increasing investments in food-producing sectors, such as Family Farming and Agrarian Reform, these products, in some way, arrive in supermarkets at low prices, reflecting this perverse logic of agricultural production in the country, Gilmar points out.
“This reveals a concern from the point of view of public health, nutrition, but also for those who produce, because capitalist competition becomes completely unbalanced. You don't have investments, you don't plant, evidently these products take over, and the consequences of this, nutritionally, but also physically and psychologically for children and adolescents, are very serious. The increase in obesity in Brazil is worrying.”
Projections and challenges of Agrarian Reform for the next period
In the case of the structuring of settlements, cooperatives and other areas of Agrarian Reform, the main challenge for the MST to advance lies in the lack of a public budget for the area. “No one will carry out Agrarian Reform without a robust budget. In addition to land, which is fundamental, we need to produce healthy food, confronting the destruction that agribusiness causes. This demands public policies such as credit, technical assistance, housing, education in Agrarian Reform, public procurement, etc.,” Débora emphasizes.
The enactment of Law No.15,226/2025 by President Lula stipulates that, starting January 1, 2026, 45% of the resources of the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) must be allocated to the purchase of food products directly from family farmers and rural family entrepreneurs. The new legislation increases the previously established minimum percentage, which was 30%, representing an important step forward in strengthening the production of healthy food and agrarian reform. However, the effective implementation of this legal achievement requires concrete conditions in the territories, especially in expanding access to credit for food production and strengthening agroecology.
The National Program for Education in Agrarian Reform (Pronera), a strategic policy for public education and training, and for the qualification and retention of settled families in rural areas, is not guaranteed by this same legal instrument and depends directly on the annual budget allocation. For 2026, an increase in the Pronera budget of at least R$ 100 million is necessary. However, the amount currently foreseen in the Annual Budget Bill (PLOA) is only R$ 29.5 million, insufficient to guarantee the continuity of ongoing projects and the implementation of new courses.
“One very positive aspect was the start of the medical course, in addition to other courses. Now there are a number of obstacles that require a budget of 100 million for the program, because it is a space for the training of young adolescents, whether in secondary, higher education, or postgraduate courses. We need both more resources and some administrative adjustments, such as the regularization of the agroecology course, for example. There is accumulated knowledge from humanity that is in the universities, and we want to have access to it,” Gilmar reflects.
In Damasceno's view, one of the urgent measures to advance the agrarian reform agenda depends on strengthening government agencies and autonomous bodies. “It is important to restore the budget, which is insufficient to advance the agrarian reform process. Agrarian reform must be a priority, especially for the MDA (Ministry of Agrarian Development), and this has left much to be desired. Incra needs to be restructured to become a strong body and meet the demands.”
In this sense, another important challenge for the next period involves expanding social mobilization around families in encampments and occupations of large estates, increasing the massive mobilization of the Movement to guarantee a balance of power and influence the government's land distribution policies. “We need to engage in this mass struggle. It is necessary to make this self-criticism on the part of our MST and resume the process of social mobilization in the next period, including at the grassroots level,” Gilmar emphasizes.
At the same time, Débora points out that the MST also has the demand to consolidate peasant communities in the settlements, considering new ways of organizing life in these communities, based on the various dimensions of life and the individuals who make up this environment. In addition to productive aspects, in these territories it is essential to strengthen social interaction, leisure, culture, among other aspects that guarantee diverse social life and a space for dignified living, with new human relationships.
“We need effective and universal public policies: productive, leisure and cultural policies, etc., that enable young people to remain in the countryside, overcoming the difficulties of rural succession. We also have the challenge of strengthening cooperation in the countryside, with cooperatives and associations capable of stimulating the simplest to the most complex forms of cooperation and technically innovating in food production, to overcome the arduousness of the work,” concludes Débora.
In the coming period, it will also be fundamental for MST families to get involved in the campaign to re-elect Lula to the presidency of the Republic. “We have no other alternative than to support the president; this also signifies a high degree of political awareness. And from another perspective, we need to try, in this last year of the president's term, to advance on urgent issues of Agrarian Reform for our base,” analyzes Gilmar.
At the same time, in the opinion of the leader, one of the greatest challenges for the left in the country lies in the need to resume a process of political awareness and people’s organization to guarantee the reconstruction of an organized social and political force.
Reference:
Gerson Teixeira. “Free Thinking” for a (PROBABLY) USEFUL alert. Brasília, December 11, 2025. Special Reports
Source: By Solange Engelmann | From the MST Page | *Edited by Erica Vanzin | Translated by Friends of the MST (US) | Original URL: https://mst.org.br/2025/12/22/pauta-estagnada-enfrentar-a-fome-crise-ambiental-e-desigualdades-passa-pela-reforma-agraria-popular/
December 22, 2025
