Landless Movement

The Movement of Landless Rural Workers of Brazil (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, MST) is the largest and most influential social movement in Latin America. The movement involves an estimated 1.5 million people, with more than 350,000 families living in its settlements across the country. It was officially founded in 1984 at Cascavel in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, although its roots go back to the peasant uprisings and the organizational activities of progressive wings of the Catholic Church before and during the military dictatorship. The prime aim of the MST is to bring about agrarian reform in Brazil. Ideologically, the movement is influenced by Marxism and liberation theology, placing [Page 821]a strong emphasis on equality, the transformation of capitalist society, sustainable agriculture, cooperativism, and protection of the environment.

Brazil is characterized by extreme inequality, with 1% of landowners controlling approximately half of all agricultural land. The rural poor, whose numbers increased during the 20th century through agricultural mechanization and hydroelectric projects, among other factors, now rely on precarious day labor on the large estates or move to urban areas, frequently ending up in the favelas (shantytowns). The MST's aim is to bring a radical transformation of land distribution, allowing these people to return to small-scale agriculture. The goal of land reform is, in fact, supported by the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, Article 184, which states that agricultural land that is not fulfilling its social function should be expropriated and used for redistribution. The MST acts to pressurize the government into fulfilling this constitutional obligation, since government-led initiatives have been slow and ineffectual. The movement organizes marches, demonstrations, and awareness-raising campaigns to bring the issue of agrarian reform to public attention. However, the principal form of direct action employed is land occupation.

A land occupation involves a group of landless people (normally numbering between 500 and 3,000) entering a large estate and occupying a piece of unused land. While waiting for the rights to the land to be granted via the government land reform organ INCRA—a process that can take years—temporary camps known as acampamentos are formed. The challenging conditions of the acampamentos call for high levels of organization, with the families taking on responsibility for various areas, such as health, education, and food. The movement gives great importance to the experience of living in an acampamento, considering it a fundamental educational process of learning to live and work cooperatively and of developing understanding of and allegiance to the political struggle.

Once rights to the land have been won, an assentamento (settlement) is formed, with each family gaining a plot of land of a minimum of 10 hectares. The original aim of the movement was that all communities would farm the land collectively. However, financial problems and resistance from some assentados (residents of settlements) led in the mid-1990s to a change of policy, meaning that assentamentos were now free to choose between collective and family or individual farming, as long as some collaboration was maintained.

The original impetus for the movement was in the south of Brazil, particularly the southernmost state Rio Grande do Sul, from which many of its most influential figures, such as João Pedro Stédile, come. Yet the movement has now spread to 23 of the country's 27 states and has developed a truly national character. The rapid growth of the movement has made necessary strong organizational structures. There are elected coordination committees at community, regional, and state levels: each of these send two representatives to the next level, culminating in a national coordination committee. In addition, there are smaller state councils and a national council of 21 people, who have a central role in the running of the movement. The administration is also divided into sectors, relating to different fields of activity. These include production, recruitment, cooperatives, education, gender, and international relations. National conferences are held every 5 years to establish the global strategies of the movement.

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