In this farming superpower, agricultural chemicals - including paraquat – face lax regulation.And in the rural northeast, rampant use has led to sickness and violence.
LIMOEIRO DO NORTE, Brazil – The farmers of Brazil have become the world’s top exporters of sugar, orange juice, coffee, beef, poultry and soybeans. They’ve also earned a more dubious distinction: In 2012, Brazil passed the United States as the largest buyer of pesticides.
PORTO ALEGRE - The main leader of the MST in Brazil, João Pedro Stédile, called on Thursday (March 12, 2015) in Porto Alegre, during
actions in defense of Petrobras, that President Dilma Rousseff "not become intimidated" in the face of pressure from the sectors of the country" who want to take power by force."
The actions are part of the National Day of Struggle of Peasant Women in denouncing the agribusiness model
Through synchronized actions, social movements block the legalization of genetically modified Eucalyptus
Though only a partial victory, the organizations involved have managed to make GMOs a subject of public debate and show its social and environmental impacts
Dear Friends and Supporters of the MST: We received the following urgent request from the MST's Human Rights Sector asking supporters throughout the world to contact the Governor of Paraná to begin an investigation into the murder of a landless family, lending their support to a land occupation. Below is the request. We've included documents and sample email letters. Please take the time to write the governor.
Whoever thinks
of agribusiness and imagines large estates producing food for Brazil’s refrigerators is gravely mistaken. What the television doesn’t tell us is that agribusiness is a form of agricultural production in which food isn’t actually produced. It doesn’t tell us that agribusiness depends on large amounts of agritoxins, and that what is produced is, in the end, exported abroad – even if public resources are used. Even worse, most land is in the hands of foreign businesses and international banks. Check out below what the real consequences of agribusiness are.
The soils are poisoned
Thanks to agribusiness, Brazil has been the world’s largest consumer of agritoxins since 2009. According to official figures more than a billion litres of poison have been thrown onto crops. These agritoxins
On Sunday morning August 31, more than three thousand landless families occupied the Santa Monica Fazenda, located between the municipalities of Alexânia, Abadiânia and Corumba (GO). The farm, registered in the name of Senator Eunício Oliveira (PMDB-EC), is a complex of more than 20,000 hectares, self-declared as unproductive.
By Igor Carvalho and Glauco Faria
With a presence in 23 states and the Federal District and with more than 900 settlements with 150 thousand families, the MST celebrates its 30th anniversary this week.
The year 2013 won’t be missed by the Landless throughout the country. Regarding the struggle for land, the balance is positive, due to the demonstrations, marches and occupations of land and public buildings that occurred almost throughout the year.
But when referring to Agrarian Reform policy, almost nothing has been done, and in many cases the government walked backwards. This is the assessment of João Paulo Rodrigues Chaves, from the national coordination of the MST, on the agrarian policy stimulated by the federal government during all of this year.
As Rodrigues stated, something that has always been bad in this government became even worse. “So far, only 159 families were settled around the country. It's a shame. There were 10 properties expropriated by the Dilma government. Worse than the last military government of General Figueiredo, when 152 properties were expropriated," he says.
Check out the interview:
by Joao Pedro Stedile, National Coordination of the MST
It is usual to take advantage of the year-end period, forever doing the critical balance of losses, achievements and progress in the various sectors of activities of our society.
Unfortunately for workers who live in the countryside the balance of 2013 is anything but optimistic. Briefly we could track several defeats that the movement of capital in imposed.
The process of concentration of land ownership and agricultural production continues to accelerate and our natural resources are increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer capitalists. There was an avalanche of foreign financial capital to control more land, more water, more plants, more agro-industries and virtually all foreign trade of agricultural commodities. And some of them are already buying up the oxygen of our forests, the famous way of carbon credit, then resold in European exchanges to permit Europe to maintain its pollution!
