Food Sovereignty and Sustainability

On May 25, 2013 over two million people marched and protested against agribusiness giant Monsanto.  See coverage from USA Today, Huffington Post and a roundup of articles on the Occupy Monsanto website.  The MST has long decried the unsustainable agricultural model that Monsanto has developed for profit – including the use of GMO seeds and a reliance on a flood of agro-toxins.

We include an article on how the Brazilian government is seemingly organizing for organic production, when in reality it is only support for agribusiness.  We also include two articles on Monsanto’s war on health, GMO labeling and its attempt to control the world’s food.

 “Agroecology Will Have A National Plan and Create A New Milestone for the Country” from Carta Maior.

From CounterPunch magazine:

 “Monsanto’s Dirty War: Why Labels on Genetically Engineered Foods Won’t Cost Consumers a Dime”

 “Monsanto Seeks to Control World’s Food: It's Not Science Fiction Anymore”

Seventeen years have passed since that fateful April 17. On that day in 1996, a march of rural workers organized by the MST was blockaded and attacked by military police in the city of Eldorado dos Carajás, Pará state. 19 people were killed on the spot and 2 others died days afterwards. The day of the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre has officially become the National Day of Struggle for Land Reform.

The Friends of the MST has translated three recent interviews with MST leaders on the state of agrarian reform in the face of the intrangience of the Brazilian government and the onslaught of international capital and agri-business.

João Pedro Stédile, a founder and coordinator of the MST estimates that the current moment is an ebb of the popular movement.First, an interview with João Pedro Stédile with ABCD Maior. Read the full interview here.

In an interview, Marina dos Santos, a member of the MST's National Coordination, discuss how Agrarian Reform came to a stop in 2012 and there were few investments by the government in production, in family farmers and in the settlements. Agrarian Reform is paralyzed because of the development model in question in Brazil today, agribusiness.¨ This is the analysis of Marina dos Santos, of the National Coordination of the MST. Read the interview here.

According to Gilmar Mauro, a member of the MST national leadership, “We are facing this very big offensive by the court in relation to the settlement areas. The Brazilian state, agribusiness, the state and federal governments are working together to prevent the advance of agrarian reform.” Read the interview here.

The Brazil Rainforest Movement launched an internet petition against the appointment of Senator Katia Abreu (PSD - TO) for the agriculture ministry of President Dilma Rousseff.

"The appointment of Katia Abreu would represent another step toward the interests of landowners and multinational agribusiness. If this action is confirmed it would be construed by us as a sign of definitive break of the federal government with sustainable development," says the petition.

Click here to sign the petition *

By José Coutinho Junior

More than 200 people from various social movements, political parties and NGOs gathered this past Sunday (12/9), at the National School Florestan Fernandes (ENFF) for the Meeting of Friends and Friends of the MST. João Pedro Stedile, MST leader, began the meeting with an analysis of the forces acting on the class struggle of the Brazilian society and how this is reflected in the countryside.

"What we face today in agriculture is no longer the backward landowner, now, when we fight for land it is necessary to face the entire capitalist system, represented mainly by finance capital and the bourgeoisie, to see that they do not have total hegemony in government clinging together with the judiciary and the media."

FINAL DECLARATION OF THE PEOPLES’ SUMMIT AT RIO+20 FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN DEFENSE OF THE COMMONS, AGAINST THE COMMODIFICATION OF LIFE

While visiting the MST Agrarian Reform  Store in the public market of Porto Allegre (RS), Jose Graziano da Silva, General Director of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO) saw the successful products derived from settlements for agrarian reform and family farming.

Obituary: it died on the night of Tuesday, 12/6/11, the victim of being run-over multiple times by  Congress. The body will spend the summer in the morgue, as some propose its dismemberment before the ceremony in the Planalto. Cruelty can only be avoided if deputies and senators forged in the struggle for democratization take advantage of the recess to ponder three questions.

The Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) received the 2011 Food Sovereignty Prize.  Inaugurated in 2009, the Food Sovereignty Prize, awarded by the Community Food Security Coalition at its 15th annual conference, held this year in Oakland California.  The prize recognizes leaders in the global movement for food sovereignty. The movement works to ensure the right of all people to control their own food and agriculture systems in the face of a food crisis that has driven over a billion people into hunger worldwide.  The MST has been recognized as the 2011 Food Sovereignty Prize winner for addressing the extreme disparities in land access in Brazil by organizing over 350,000 landless rural families to resettle and farm formerly idle land.