MST: a bottom-up Agrarian Reform

In the beginning of our long trip in Brasil, an old black man in Bahia told us: "tem muitos Brasis em Brasil", meaning there are many Brasils within Brasil.

After 2 months of exhausting travelling, spending more than 6.000 Km in buses and changing 10 different states, only 2 things are in common within this immense country: football and fazendas...

Fazendas are big (better say enormous) pieces of land that belong to powerful people, the fazendeiros. The fazendeiros usually make money from different business than agriculture (media, finances, constructions, investments etc.). One should look back to the history of Brasil to find out how so much land was concentrated in the hands of so few people (which is not the issue at this post). The important thing is that the whole Brasil, an immense area of land, almost 65 times the size of Greece is cut into (quite big) pieces and distributed to (quite few) people.

Natural parks, whole parts of cities, areas of archaeological importance, regions of indigenous communities, touristic destinations, mountains, beaches, valleys, lakes, and rivers, everything in Brasil can be a fazenda. If you take a bus-ride to the countryside you will discover that both sides of the roads are fenced. We even visited some touristic sites where we had to pay an entrance fee, not to the Brasilian Tourism Organisation, not even to a private company for the preservation of the site, but to the owner of that piece of land.

These fazendas are rarely productive. Many are abandoned and some are rented out to multinationals for industrial purposes (cultivation of eucalyptus, acacia etc.). Property titles are often questionable, as for taxes they are rarely paid by the fazendeiros.

What is undisputable is that all fazendas are always fenced and very well guarded. Who wants to lose his beloved fazenda by any group of invaders? Possession of land in Brasil is power. Show me your land to tell you who you are…

Some kilometres far from the fazendas, millions of poor Brasilians try to survive packed in the favelas, self-built settlements at the suburbs of big cities. Unemployment, poor hygienic conditions, violence and hunger prevail in the favelas.

Therefore, some years ago the government promised the “Agrarian Reform”, in other words to buy land from rich and redistribute it to poorer Brasilians. However, the plan never went through. The powerful lobbies of fazendeiros stopped any attempt.

Some 22 years ago the Movement of the Landless Rural Workers (MST) was created as a means of pressure to the Government of Brasil to proceed to the Agrarian Reform.

In very simple words, here is how the movement works:

MST is having its own research groups, which identify which fazendas are not used, therefore are eligible for expropriation. It sets settlements at the territory outside this fazenda and proceeds to short-term occupations of the fazenda. Occupations are usually pacific (women and children are at the front lines) and may last from a couple of days, to many months. Usually, occupants are thrown out by the police or the guards of the fazenda. However, these symbolic occupations, serve as a means of pressure for the government to start negotiations with the fazendeiro and proceed to expropriation of his land. Often negotiations are successful, the land is expropriated and redistributed to members of MST. Some other times, the fazendeiro might not agree to give away his land. In that case the government makes sure to start negotiations for the expropriation of nearby fazendas.

Under the constant pressure of MST, every month the government is happy to announce the expropriation of more and more fazendas. Now about 200.000 poor Brasilian families have won their piece of land and escaped from the nightmare of the favelas. Another 200.000 families are camping outside big fazendas waiting to earn their own land.

MST has achieved what no previous government had achieved, the redistribution of the Brasilian land …or better call it: “a bottom-up Agrarian Reform”!!!