Tebet meets with MST to discuss agrarian reform; Haddad is next

Minister Simone Tebet, of Planning, met with members of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), on Monday night (16), to discuss the allocation of budget resources to agrarian reform policies.

The meeting in Brasília was registered by the MST, although it was not scheduled on the minister’s official agenda. According to the movement, Simone Tebet told members that they “need to get on the Brazilian budget agenda”.

“We know that it is family farming that produces food in the country. Therefore, we need a national plan, for this year, that has short, medium and long-term goals”, said the minister to the movement.

According to the MST record, Simone Tebet also highlighted the need for “the immediate settlement of all families camped in the country”, in addition to the urgency of guaranteeing a budget to promote policies to encourage the production of healthy food.

The MST also states that the resumption of the National Agrarian Reform Education Program was discussed, with the application of resources for the project. The minister did not comment on the meeting.

In addition to Simone Tebet, the MST will meet this Tuesday (17th), at 4pm, with Minister Fernando Haddad, of Finance, and Márcio Macêdo, of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic.

Since the beginning of the Lula government, the MST has been dissatisfied with the lack of actions to accelerate agrarian reform in the country – a banner of the movement that is a historic ally of the president. Earlier this month, one of the movement’s leaders, João Paulo Rodrigues, said that new invasions are not ruled out.

“Yes, we are worried about the pace of the government. We are in October and we cannot end the year with a very low balance for the base of movements in the field,” he said.

According to Rodrigues, the government “is committed to agrarian reform”, but guaranteed that the possibility of new invasions is not “retaliation, revenge or pressure”. For him, the Lula government “cannot spend a year being beaten by the machine”, due to the low amount of resources for agrarian reform.

Days earlier, audios from parliamentarians from the PT base in the Chamber of Deputies revealed dissatisfaction with Lula’s ministers, especially those linked to agrarian policies. “We present [um valor e negaram]. We lowered it to R$200 [milhões] and they are talking about R$40 [milhões]. Guys, this is a crisis”, stated Airton Faleiro (PT-PA) in one of the messages.

João Paulo Rodrigues was still dissatisfied with the result of the CPI, in which deputy rapporteur Ricardo Salles (PL-SP) classified the movement as a “criminal organization” and criminalized the activities. The report was not voted on, but a series of bills were suggested to Congress.