O Nordeste Parte 2

After visiting the Escola Estadual in Assentamento Quisama, I travelled the MST acampamento Mario Lago just 30 minutes outside of Aracaju. The 85 families in the acampamento have been camped out for over 8 years. When the MST first invaded the land and set up an acampamento there were over 600 families, however over the years the theifs, free-riders, and half-hearted MST families desisted back to the city or to other acampamentos.

The Acampamento is located within a large tract of government land that has been leased out to farming companies to plant monoculture crops, especially sugarcane. The luta of the Acampamento has been a frustrating one. Since the land is already owned by the government and is leased to companies and not families, the MST believed it was prime land to be reallocated for agrian reform. The 10 year lease ends in 2012 and the coordinator of the Acampamento is sure that next year they will win access to the land.

However after 8 years the families have establish a very dignified little Agro-villa with 80 little huts of plastic, wood, and metal stretching on either side of a compact dirt road. Behind each house stretches a 3 acre lot where the family grows produce or raises chickens or pigs for family consumption and also to sell in the nearby markets. Even though the families have been squatting for 8 years, they have established productive little farms and gardens and have invested their community, school, and houses.



I also visited another Acampamento just 3 miles away from Mario Lago, called Acampamento Tingui. At 14 years, this is the oldest Acampemento in the state. Unlike the acampamento I visted in Rio Grande dol Sul, where families come and go after a few years, the 2 acampamentos here have had the same families throughout the struggle. Acampamento Tingui is located within a huge, unproductive farm/fazenda that is owned by a rich family that lives in Aracaju and is active in state politics. Since the family has so much sway and is unwilling to compromise on a lower land price, the MST has been unsuccessful in negotiating terms for land distribution. Like Acampamento Mario Lago the families have begun to expand and cultivate the land surrounding them that has gone unused for decades.


In the south and coastal region I was invited to accompany one of the regional directors on a visit to a few assentamentos in the region. I was allowed to sit in and listen to the discussions he had with the coordinators of each assentamento. He also introduced me and afterwards I was able to talk to some of the coordinators and learn about the history and development of each assentamento.



Most of them had only been assentamentos for 2 years and were struggling acquire funds to build houses and begin agriculture production. The government Agrarian Reform department is required to provide new assentmantos and families with credit and loans to build houses and buy tools and seeds for production, however the government is incredibly slow and bureaucratic and after 2 years many families have seen nothing. The agriculture production that existed at each assentamento is a result of each families own ability to pool resources and work, and also a result of collective work by families, helping one another plant and harvest when the time comes.




My last few days in Sergipe I spent in the northwest part of the state in the Sertao. The area only expiences a dry season of 9 months and a wet season of 3 months where it rains only a few times a week. Since the Sertao is less populated and has less agriculture production, the majority of MST assentamentos in Sergipe are located in the Sertao. However, the main agricultural struggle is the access to water and irrigation, because during the dry months farmers must rely on groundwater and irrigation to keep crops alive.



While in the Sertao I visited the largest MST assentamento of 760 families on some 30,000 hectares of land. The assentmaneto in itself is a small town, with a school, health center, ice cream shop, various small mercado shops, and also a co-op which produces fruits, vegetables, and milk to be sold in the city and to schools, hospitals, and other public institutions. Luckily the assentamento is located on an irrigation project that the government funded in order to bring big agri-business companies to the area, however the MST was successful in moving in and opening up the land for Brazilian families instead of multi-national companies. As of today only 1/3 of the area has been irrigated and the government is slowly extending irrigation infrastructure to the rest of the assentamento.

The Northeast Part 1

For the last stage of my project I traveled by plane to Sergipe, a small state on the Northeast coast of Brazil. I am documenting the trip in two segments because I didnt have internet access while I was there.

Sergipe is the smallest state in Brazil and can be crossed from one side to other in less than 4 hours. Although the state is small it has a number of micro climates, including the wet green litoral, the zona de mata (the forest zone--where the majority of the sugarcane plantations are located), the agreste (verdant rolling hills in the interior), and the Sertao, which is the famous Brazilian desert.

When the Portuguese arrived the Northeast was the first area of Brazil to be colonized and developed, due to the perfect climate for sugarcane production. Today the Northeast of Brazil is seen as almost another country from the South and Southeast regions, which experienced much more European immigration and developed at a much faster rate. The Northeast is dominated and inhibited by 5 centuries of sugarcane production, and today has become one of the most poorest regions of all Latin America. It also has the highest concentration of Afro-Brazilians, due to the sugarcane slave trade that brought nearly 40 million Africans to the Northeast.

The MST movement in the Northeast is also a very distinct reality from that of the South. In Rio Grande dol Sul there were only 600 MST families acampados (camping, waiting for land to open up), however in Sergipe alone there are 11,000 families acampados. The MST movement originated in the South and developed much faster there, however due to the pressing poverty and inequality in the Northeast, the movement is has become a prominent force. One of the national MST directors of Sergipe told me that the luta (fight) in the Northeast was access to land, and the luta in the South had become a luta for access to credit and loans.

The first day I arrive in Aracaju, the capital city of Sergipe located halfway up the state on the coast, and was driven around the city by two MST members who showed me places and buildings the MST had occupied. I also visited the MOTU Movimento dos Trabalhadores Urbanos, which is a new urban movement that the MST has grandfathered along to help organize and empower property-less and job-less urban citizens to gain access to proper housing and job opportunities in the city. The MST National Director also told me of a project the MST and MOTU have been working on to create a farmers market where MST families can send their produce to Aracaju and other cities to be sold by MOTU members, creating more employment and market connections for families in both movements.

In the past 4 years MOTU occupied a number of abandoned apartment buildings in the city, pressing the government to address the imminent homeless situation, however many times they were violently evicted by police, who used dogs and weapons to intimidate and hurt men and children.

The second day in Sergipe I drove deep into the interior to an assentamento in the Agreste. The director of the assentamento held a big afternoon bbq party and invited MST members and directors from accross the region to celebrate the successes and advancements of the movement. At the bbq I spoke with a number of different members of the MST including farmers, to Agro-technicians, policemen, and I also met a national senator who had been an MST member and farmer before being elected to the national congress.

The following day I visited one of the oldest Assentamentos in Sergipe, located just 20 minutes outside of Aracaju. The Assentamento also has a state-wide school and cultural center, where courses and MST reunions take place year round. When I visited there was a group of 30 Haitians, who where studying Agronomia with the MST in a year-long Technical Program facilitated through La Via Campesina, which is the international peasant movement that is very interconnected with the MST in Brazil. At the assentamento I sat in on a long meeting composed of the state directors, directors of various assentamentos, and also Agro-Tecnicos. The MST has a number of Agro-Tecnicos, which are professionals in Agronomy, Environmental Engineering, Zoology, and other areas related to agriculture production, that are hired through the government and help MST families learn agriculture skills and also plan new projects. One of the Major problems however, is that the government institution responsible fore Agrarian Reform is incredibly underfunded and plagued by a lethargic beaurocracy. Many families dont recieve the credit and loans they are entitled to by law up to 2 or 3 years late. Currently many of the Agro-tecnicos, who are professional government hired workers, haven't relieved their payment in 5 months.

Acampamentos - Campo e Cidade

My last days in Rio Grande dol Sul were spent in an MST acampamento and at a 3 day, statewide youth congress of varios social movements in the Rio Grande dol Sul area.

The MST Acampamento I visited is located an hour outside of Porto Alegre. The Acampamento is a community of black tarp tents that are located alongside a major highway leading to Porto Alegre. Over 50 families live in modest huts made of black plastic tarps with dirt floors and wood fired cook stoves. After joining the MST, landless families must camp in these acampamentos for an extended period of time until the State government authorizes land to be redistributed. Sometimes the MST organizes acampamentos inside the private farms or property (fazendas) that they hope to gain access to. However in recent years the MST has organized acampamentos, such as the one I visited, that are located on government land to press the government into action, and also to avoid violent conflicts with the private landowners, who often employ private securty forces to scare MST families and also evict them from the land. At the acampamento I visited Some families had only been there a few months, while others have been at the acampamento for over 4 years.

Life in the acampamento is my first real glimpse into the poverty and struggle of the landless families. While the families had little income they were very open and welcoming and offered abundant amounts of food and hospitality. Some cultivate little gardens and even had pigs and chickens out behind their tents. Many families have at least one member who busses into Porto Alegre to work, and others have family members living in the city who send food and money to support the camping families.

From the acampamento, me and 5 other youth traveled to a city in the interior of Porto Alegre for the Acampamento da Juventude, which is a statewide campout that occurs every year in the city Santa Maria. Over 700 youth from various social movements, including the MST, Levante Popular da Juventude, and many others, come together to debate and share experiences, create stronger networks between movements and youth that share the same luta, and also stengthen a projecto popular that aims to reduce inequality and poverty in Brazil and attacks the capitalist policies of the government.

It was interesting to see that although nearly a third of the youth came from country origins, it was almost impossible to distibguish and urban youth from a rural one. The urban culture, through television, music, and internet, has thoroughly penetrated the youth culture of the campo.

The Acampamento was a great experience to contextualize the youth of social movements in the south of Brazil. It was very interesting to see how the youth coordinate and organize among themselves.

Assentamentos in Rio Grande do Sul

After spending time getting to know the Levante Popular Juventude, and their luta in Porto Alegre, I visited an assentamento or agricultural community of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Desempregos (Unemployed Workers Movement). The MTD was created in 1999 in Rio Grande dol Sul and has spread to inlcude some 10 other Brazilian states. The movement is focused at creating better job security and opportunities for the working class, and also works closely with the MST and other social movements.

The Assentamento Belo Monte (Beautiful Hill) is the oldest assentamento of the MTD, and is one of seven in Rio Grande do Sul. It is located 45 minutes outside of Porto Alegre, and is composed of 35 families who each manage 10 hectares of land. Due to its close proximity to Porto Alegre, many family members commute to work in the city, while others work the land to produce for family consumption.

The MTD is a young cousin of the MST and works to connect more urban-oriented families and workers with better options. One very interesting aspect of the assentamento, is the mentality of the city or peripheria that the families bring to the countryside. Living in a favela or in the periphery of a city cultivates a certain city mentality that is difficult to shed once family or youth move to the city.

After spending a few days in Assentamento Belo Monte, I travelled to Viamao, a smaller city outside of Porto Alegre, and and stayed a few days in Assentmanto Tiaraju, which is also home to the Escola Estuadual of Rio Grande dol Sul, which hosts classes and conferences of the MST year round. While I was at the Escola, there were only a few MST members there who worked in and around the Escola, however the week after I left commenced a two week course of political formation for MST youth and also a 4 day state-wide conference of the MST.

Assentamento Tiaraju is composed of 350 families, and totals some 10,000 hectares. The land previously pertained to a weathly businessmen who also owned the conservative newspaper of Porto Alegre, however he defaulted on loans and ended up ceding his fazenda to the government, who was able to distribute it the MST; however this method of land aquisition is not very common in Brazil. The IMF and World Bank support a model of land redistribution that is somewhat similar, and entails the governemnt buying up land and fazendas at face price and then

distributing them to MST families, who then have to repay the price of the land after a certain number of years.

The fazenda formerly was a monoculture farm of rice production. Today each of the 350 families have 10-15 hectares for family production, in addition to a cooperative that manages a small scale production or organice rice, using the irrigation and infraestructure that the old rice fazenda left.

The Assentamento Tiaraju is a successful example of an MST assentemento, due to its large area of land for each family, proximity to Viamao (15 min) and Porto Alegre (45 min) which allow market access and also employment options, and also the successful internal organization of the assentmanento, which has a number of successful cooperativos.

Levante Popular da Juventude, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande dol Sul

After the Jornada de Agroecologia I returned to the ELAA for a day and then travelled 12 hours south to Rio Grande dol Sul, the southernmost state of Brasil. The state is known for its fertile rolling plains, cold winter weather, yerba mate, and ''gaucho" culture. Rio Grande is also the birthplace of the MST, with the first acampamento in Ezcruzilado Natalinho, and the first major land vicotry in Fazenda Annoni. A number of other agrarian social movements also took root in Rio Grande, including the MPA (Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultures-- Small Farmer Movement) a 'cousin' of the MST that fights for rights and support of small family farming, and als the CPT (Comission Pastoral del la Terra) a socially active sector of the catholic church that helps organize and support farmers and peasant groups and helped create the MPA. A major reason why many social and especially social agrarian movements take root in Rio Grande is due to its accellerated development of captial and agro-industry in the state which occurred following WWII. The development of mechanized and chemical agriculture by large agri-business companies, pushed peasants off the land and pooled land and resources in the hands of a small minority, that managed the land in a much more 'productive' manner.

During the late 19th century and on into the 20th century, the region experience heavy italian and german migration, especially during the period known as the "embranquecimento" or "whitening," where the Brazilian government cleared large areas of land of Indians and African-descendents, and heavily emphasized European immigr

ation. In Porto Alegre, many times I've heard people refer to a white-

skinned, cleared-eyed man as 'alemao' or 'german', regardless of their actual descent.

After meeting with the MST office in Porto Alegre, I spent the next few days spending time with a group called "Levante Popular da Juventude." (Popular Youth Rising, or something of the sort). The movement surfaced in 2005 in Porto Alegre, with support of la

Via Campesina and other social movments in the area, that sought a need to organize and empower the youth of different social movements, as well provide contstructive environments and opportunities for kids and young adults in the peripheries of the city.

I visited a perihpery community, also

known as a "morro" (hill) or "favela." With the Levante I attended a community assembly where the Mayor of Porto Alegre talked

about the impacts of the World Cup 2014 construction, which included the relocation of thousands of families in the perihpery to build bigger roads and hotels in the area.

The assembly took place in a church, packed with hundreds of worried community members, who gave the Mayor quite a hard time. Basically the Mayor was trying to ease their worries

about being relocated to other parts of the city and about the resources and financial aid they would recieve to make the move. However it became obvious as the assembly went on, that this project, funded by the government, would only benefit interests of tourism and commercial interests a small minority and move voice-less, lower income families further into the perfiphey.

The Levante hopes soon expand outside of Rio Grande to other parts of Brazil, organizing and create strong networks between social movements throughout the country to create a stronger and more informed "base."

(Kid's Banner: We want guarantee of our homes! With dignity!)

The first week of winter in the southern hemisphere I found myself in two experiences that few Americans have encountered: working in the sugarcane and listening to Almeida Guevara speak.

I spent my last day in Assentamento Contestado helping Adriano, a MST member who works part time in Curitiba, cut sugarcane on his family plot. We spent the first half of the day hacking the bases of the bamboo-like trunks and tossing the cana into piles. The leaves of the cana are long, thin and sharp and gnash at the arms, hands and face, inflicting little itchy cuts. In Northeast Brazil, home of the historical sugarcane plantations, thousands of Nordestinos work in the cana in piecemeal labor, paid by the amount of kilos of sugarcane cut per day, which sometimes amounts to abysmal income and encourages workers into 10 and 12 hour days. The poor health conditions include cuts and infections, dehydration, fatigue, and harmful particles from chopped sugarcane that damage the lungs, in addition to serious injuries incurred by weary workers swinging razor sharp machetes.

At midday we stopped to rest and eat lunch. Outside of their house is a small hand-powered mill that crushes the sugarcane and extracts a trickle of liquid from the sugarcane ´caldo de cana.´ This liquid is boiled and refined to make brown sugar, and by a chemical process, white sugar. The crude liquid is the sweetest and most delicious drink I´ve ever tasted. The essence of ´sugar water,´ it is light brown and milky, and glides over the lips and down the throat in a sweet chorus. I had to restrain myself from a 4th glass before lunch. In the afternoon we chopped up the sugarcane trunks and replanted the pieces along the edge of a field, to serve as a wind buffer and natural fence to keep animals out, and also a source of caldo and sugar. Sugarcane is a fast-growing and durable plant, and planted sectios of only one trunk can produce over 10 sugarcane stalks the following year.

That night 80 community members from Assentamento Contestado, and the students at the Escola LatinoAmericano de Agroecologia bussed 7 hours north to Londrina for the 10th annual Congress of Agroecologia. Over three and a half days, more than 3,500 attendees from all over the Americas came together to learn about, debate, and share experiences of Agroecologia.

The Jornada is organized through La Via Campesina with a large contribution from the MST. Other social movments such as the MPA- Movimentos dos Pequenos Agricultores, MMC-Movimento das Mulheres Camponesas, peasant and agriculture movements throughout Latin America, and professores, students, government officials, and anyone else interested in Agroecology is welcome.

The Jornada began with thousands of participants bussing to Londrina´s downtown area, and marching some 5 kilometers through town, stopping traffic and demanding the attention of the local population and media to make it known that the Jornada against agro-toxicos, trans-genicos, and large-scale latifundios was taking place in Londrina. In the center plaza the thousands of marchers gathered to listen to the keynote speeches before returning to the University of Londrina where the Jornada was held.

The Jornada hosted 16 seminarios given by professors and agriculutural, environmental and political experts, as well as 54 different small class on experiences of Agroecologia, mostly in Brazil, from beekeeping and composting to government policy and small scale cooperatives. By coincidence I ran into professor Maria-Josee Massicotte, who gave a presentation about the MST agroecology schools at UNC last fall, where I first learned about the movement. She helped me with my research proposal and also helped me get in contact with the ELAA. She is in Brazil for two weeks and is researching assentamento cooperativos in the north of Parana and comparing them with peasant organizations in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was great to touch base with her, converse about our research project and the different obstacles, and also share experiences from Chapel Hill to Brazil.

After spending a few days visiting and learning about the Escola Latino Americana de Agroecologia and Assentamento (which means a MST agriculuture community) Contestado, I was invited to help out with the Assentamnto´s Cooperativo. The Cooperativo is made of of 103 of the 108 families in the Assentamento, and requires families to contribute fruits, vegetables, and agro-products on a weekly basis to be sold in the city. They must also volunteer their time and work to help coordinate and load and unload the truck that makes weekly trips into Curitiba and other nearby cities.

Cooperativos are part of the MST´s economic development plans, and are often essential to the economic survival of new assentamentos. The member families pool a portion of their products, resources, and labor to establish a shared source of revenue that is generated by gaining access to local products and consumers.

I awoke at 5 am the day of the trip and me and two other men left the assentamento before dawn. The flatbed truck was loaded 8 feet high with over 20 different types of fruits and vegetables. We spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon driving around the outskirts of Curitba, delivering produce to a school for mentally impaired adults, a home for abandoned children, a cancer hospital, a recycling center, and an office for the Roofless Movement (Movimento Sem-Teto, which is an urban movement for citizens without legitamate houses). The recycling center is part of the Movimento dos Catadores (or Recyclers), and both movements have strong connections to the MST. These and other social movements and organizations are part of a larger network of social movements that work together and support one another, and the MST benefits by selling their products to these organizations. The cancer hospital is an interesting market for the MST, since cancer patients must eat organic food without pesticides and poison, and the interest there is not necessarily supporting agrarian reform products, but rather the legitamate need for organic products.

Like the Assentamento I visited in Itapeva, Sao Paolo, the proximity to nearby cities is very important for the survival of community, since most families need to generate some form of income aside for sustenance agriculture.