MST wants agrarian reform with Chinese tractor and lots close to urban centers

Sao Paulo-SP) – At the target of a CPI in the Chamber and about to complete 40 years, the MST (Movement of Landless Rural Workers) pressures the Lula government (PT) for an agrarian reform model that distributes smaller lots, far from the Amazon and close to the big centers urban areas, in addition to equipping them with small agricultural machinery.

A member of Lula’s entourage on the trip to China in April, MST leader João Pedro Stedile follows the negotiations for an agreement between the country, through the Agricultural University of China, and the Northeast Consortium for the donation of small tractors, intended for family farming.

In July, specialists from the university will be in Brazil to test the viability of some machines in the Northeast with the support of research institutions and universities in the region. The MST wants part of the equipment to be tested in the movement’s settlements.

Secondly, there is the expectation that the Chinese government will invest its technology in a factory in Brazil for the production of this small-sized machinery — such as power tillers, microtractors, brushcutters, planters and seeders.

Alexandre Lima, secretary of Rural Development and Family Agriculture of Rio Grande do Norte and coordinator of this area at the Northeast Consortium, who was in China for the negotiation, says that the tests will begin in his state.

He highlights, in a note, that “the importation is for testing”. “What the states want is the transfer of technology and the installation of factories in the Northeast”, he says.

Also according to MST leaders, the Lula government wants to launch a national plan for the mechanization of family farming, which, for the time being, should be done through lines of credit so that producers can buy equipment.

According to Minister Paulo Teixeira (PT), of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture, the federal government should present in the coming weeks an agrarian reform program with a budget of R$ 500 million that includes the offer of areas already expropriated in several states and credit for regularization of batches.

The new proposal for agrarian reform that the MST is pleading with the Planalto is aimed at food production and facing hunger in Brazil – themes that the movement sought to expose more recently through the 4th National Fair of Agrarian Reform, in São Paulo .

For this reason, according to Diego Moreira, a member of the national coordination of the MST’s production sector, the plan is for land distributions and new settlements to be concentrated in regions close to urban centers.

According to Moreira, the MST invasions, which they call occupations, target large estates, properties owned by Union debtors and areas that exploit slave labor – and there are lands with these characteristics in metropolitan regions.

“So these areas will continue to be the target of our demand for them to be destined for agrarian reform.”

“We need an agrarian reform and a settlement project that contemplates the distribution of land, the production of healthy foods, agro-industrialization, that is, adding value to this production, which has technical assistance and logistical capacity for disposal” he says to Sheet.

The movement hopes that the Lula government will create the logistical conditions and subsidize the sale of production from settlements in cities through popular grocery stores installed on the outskirts, for example.

Today, the MST reaches the private market through the Armazém do Campo stores, but the main means of selling production is the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), in which the federal government buys food from family farming to supply public schools.

The plan to take agrarian reform far from the Amazon, says Moreira, considers not only the difficulty of selling production in the region, but also the need to preserve the forest.

“We are not going to settle or regularize land in the Amazon to take people there to colonize”, he says.

Another request of the MST with the federal government is that the land available for agrarian reform be distributed in smaller lots, which makes it possible to accommodate more families in the settlements.

The movement has about 500,000 families settled and another 80,000 camped, and the size of the lots varies according to the region of the country.

“Because it is close to a large urban center, even in a smaller area you have a greater added value to production. That is, if you manage to have greater productivity and profitability due to the easier flow. So, they will probably be settlements with smaller lots and with a better cooperative action, in production, agro-industrialization and commercialization”, says Moreira.

Cícero Miranda, 66, an MST settler in Santa Maria da Boa Vista (PE), says that producers in his region depend on passing on production to a cooperative in Caruaru (PE) to sell it. The lack of transport sometimes leads the settlers to resort to middlemen, who pay a low price to resell the products in large capitals.

“We have the will, but we depend on it… The political area is very influential”, he says when asked about concentrating settlements close to metropolitan areas. Miranda also says that it is necessary to have tractors “because the land is hard and there is no way to cultivate it with a hoe”.

The MST proposes a new agrarian reform design to the federal government at a time of heightened tension with ruralists after the Red April invasions and the installation of the CPI in the Chamber of Deputies.

In Moreira’s opinion, there is a reaction from agribusiness to know “that the Brazilian State has returned to having a democratic government, which is committed to social issues and which we helped to elect”.

But the MST coordinator demands more alignment from the Lula administration and says that “this would be the moment for the government to reaffirm its commitment to agrarian reform”. He says that the “mismatch” with Planalto is “momentary and conjunctural”.

“Some think the situation is very difficult, I think it is not so much. We are advancing to create conditions for a convergence in society to advance agrarian reform”, says Moreira, mentioning the holding of the fair in the capital of São Paulo, with the authorization of Bolsonarist governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), as an example of this.
*With information from Folha de S.Paulo

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