17. Land and Food: The New Struggles of the Landless Workers Movement (MST)

This article aims to analyse this new struggle by the MST and contribute towards an understanding of the emergence of the struggle for land and food. The MST, recognised as one of the most prominent peasant movements in the struggle for land and agrarian reform in Brazil, has also set up a food movement through participation in the creation of popular and institutional markets, where it sells part of the production from its territory in the construction of a peasant food system. The struggle for land in the third decade of the twenty-first century is very different from the struggle for land in the 1970s/80s, when the MST was founded. The characteristics of the struggle against large estates and agribusiness, including multinational corporations, are analysed. There is a new struggle for land, which is approaching the cities and has appropriated food sovereignty and agroecology. The struggle for land has its roots in other struggles. The struggle for healthy food is inseparable from the struggle for land and agrarian reform. A new direction has been taken. This theoretical essay, based on various studies, including monographs, dissertations, theses, books and research reports, will analyse the ecological production of rice in MST agrarian reform settlements in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the production of coffee in settlements in Minas Gerais, as well as other foods in settlements in other regions of Brazil. With the struggle for land and foods that have provided peasant farmers with an income, we will show the creation of new peasant food system which is resulting in the sustainable modernisation of agriculture. We will argue that this is an experience not limited to the MST, but rather which forms part of the globalisation of the agrarian question.