Home

Landless Workers Movement (MST)

Janaina Stronzake, Youth Activist: Growing up in Brazil's Occupy Land Movement

By Jonathan Leaning
December 9th, 2011

Janaina Stronzake is a youth leader within Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) – the largest peasant movement in Latin America with over 1.5 million members.

2011 Food Sovereignty Prize winners announced

October 13th, 2011

The Community Food Security Coalition and the US Food Sovereignty Alliance will announce on World Food Day, October 16th 2011 that the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil (MST) has been awarded the 2011 Food Sovereignty Prize. The MST is a Grassroots International partner and member of the Via Campesina.

The Food Movement

By Frances Moore Lappé
October 6th, 2011

The Nation Editor's Note: Frances Moore Lappé's essay below kicks off our forum on the food movement. Raj Patel, Vandana Shiva, Eric Schlosser, and Michael Pollan have contributed replies. [Links to those replies appear below.]

Grassroots International Partners Take Action for Peasants’ Day

The Via Campesina declared April 17 as "International Day of Peasants' Struggles." This day commemorates the 1996 slaughter by the Brazilian police of 19 peasants of the Landless Worker Movement (MST) while they mobilized to gain access to some land. The struggle for recognition of peasant rights remains a priority of the Via Campesina, one of Grassroots International's partners, and they are coordinating hundreds of actions worldwide.

How peasant farmers feed the planet

In the northeast of Brazil, the landscape changes from dry, spiny vegetation to humid, verdant scenery dominated by sugar cane plantations. Driving through villages inhabited mostly by sugar-cane cutters is like winding through a slum in a big city. Barefoot children sell candy beneath the traffic lights, Coca-Cola signs light up bars and open-air sewage gives an indication of the pervasive poverty.
 
In the middle of a “green desert” of sugar cane (grown mostly for export), from the road I saw two adults and a young boy working in what appeared to be a tiny oasis teeming with lush fresh vegetables that shined from afar.

Referendum on Land Holding Used to Educate about Landlessness, Agribusiness

As part of a larger campaign to support the right to land, this week Grassroots International provided a $10,000 grant to boost education and organizing around a powerful national referendum in Brazil. The referendum, being organized by social movements for the first week of September, probes public opinion regarding the size of land holdings.

Although non-binding, the referendum provides an opportunity for land rights activists to educate voters about the growing problem of landlessness in the countryside caused by the expansion of agribusinesses in peasant and indigenous communities.