By JOÃO PEDRO STÉDILE*
We still have 3 million landless families, who work as rural wage earners, as sharecroppers and tenants, and who would like to have their own space.
In the MST we have a social practice of resolving everything collectively and even though I have a more well-known face in Brazilian society, I always try to express the opinion of our collective. When the MST was born and built collectively 40 years ago, our ideal was the fight for agrarian reform, which is based on that Zapatista vision of the Mexican Revolution: “land is for those who work”, which was adopted throughout Latin America by the struggle of peasant movements, this took a peasant conception of the struggle for land, that is, they fought massively but the essence was to solve the problems of peasant families and now we are in a new stage of international capitalism.
Over the last 20 years, global capitalism has undergone major changes, and today, the dominant players in agricultural production are financial capital and large transnational corporations. In Brazil and around the world, this has led the MST and peasant movements in general, and we have come together in Via Campesina, to adapt our program to the new reality of the class struggle in agriculture. Today, we have a situation where three models, or three proposals for organizing agriculture, are constantly confronting each other in the countryside in Brazil and Latin America, which, modesty aside, I know a little about.
The first model we call predatory latifundia, this is not an academic term, it is a concept from the political struggle. Predatory latifundia are those large capitalist farmers financed by market capital and transnational corporations that go into nature and appropriate common goods: public lands, forests, minerals, water and biodiversity in general; and transform these goods into merchandise and thus have a fantastic profit rate.
Therefore, it is a model that enriches, but it is not a socially fair model and is unsustainable from an environmental point of view. The second model is the agribusiness sung in verse and prose every night in the National Journal as if it were modern, as if it were the future, as if it were what carried Brazil on its back. However, the agribusiness model is based on a form of organization based on monoculture and here in Brazil it is limited to just five products: soybeans, corn, sugar cane, cotton and extensive cattle farming, but all of these products are commodities agricultural products for export are not intended to solve the people's problems.
On the other hand, because they are large-scale monocultures, they adopt transgenic seeds and pesticides, and pesticides kill biodiversity, destroy soil fertility and unbalance the environment. They are more harmful to climate change than the fires themselves, because with the fires, nature recovers, but with the poison, it does not; it stays there and kills. So, the agribusiness model is also unsustainable both from a social point of view because it does not want to employ people and from an environmental point of view because it destroys the environment.
The third model is the family farming model, which, once again, the bourgeois press calls backward, that it no longer exists, or whatever, but family farming in Brazil provides employment for 16 million family workers without exploitation; it is family farming that produces food for the domestic market. The only product that goes to the table of the worker that still comes from agribusiness is soybean oil, apart from that, everything comes from family farming and it is a model that practices polyculture, that is, you go to five hectares and find different forms of production, different vegetables, different animals and this combination is what preserves the environment, preserves the springs.
In São Paulo, in recent months, due to the drought, there have been fires. How did the fires start? A plant set fire to sugarcane to facilitate mechanical harvesting. The wind blew and caused a fire that burned 300 hectares of sugarcane in other regions. Farmers did the same thing to burn dry pasture so that the grass would grow back. The wind blew and burned 600 hectares of sugarcane from good pasture. The smoke reached São Paulo and, for a week, doctors reported that 60 people were dying every day from smoke inhalation, of course, mostly elderly people and children who are severely affected by lung diseases.
Now, the question remains: why were there no fires in the family farming region, in the Itapeva region in the south of the state, in the Ribeira Valley or in the Andradina region? Because in polyculture there are several forms of plant and animal life that coexist and, therefore, there is no drought or fire that can destroy this. Well, now I will get to the point: fighting for agrarian reform today is not just fighting for land for the peasants; fighting for agrarian reform today is fighting for what we call a popular agrarian reform.
In other words, structural changes need to be made to land ownership and the organization of production, with two major objectives at the center of their social function: first, to produce healthy food for all the people, because the Brazilian people eat very poorly. When we talk about producing food for the people, we are in fact thinking about a basic food basket that provides nutrients, animal protein, and free-range eggs for all the people. If this aggression that agribusiness and large estates practice against nature continues, it will put human life at risk, as people are already dying from these environmental crimes. Therefore, these new functions of a popular agrarian reform need to be implemented from now on.
For sustainable agriculture
In order for family farming, which employs 16 million people, to fulfill its mission of protecting nature and producing healthy food for all, it is necessary to implement agroecology as a technological production method. Agroecology is a combination of knowledge from popular wisdom, which comes from generations of farmers' coexistence with nature, but there is also a fundamental component, which is the scientific knowledge produced in academia, at Embrapa and in research institutes.
It is through the combination of these two aspects, popular wisdom and scientific knowledge, that you will introduce and propagate agroecology. In order for agroecology to be used on a massive scale, and not as it is now, where unfortunately few families are able to adopt it, not because they do not want to, but because they do not know how, it is necessary to disseminate and use agroecology broadly throughout Brazil and in all biomes. We need to face some challenges, and this is the dialogue that the MST and Via Campesina have been having with researchers, our allies at universities, and now even with the Chinese University of Agriculture.
The first challenge is that we need to control seed production. Those who do not control the seed will be held hostage by some company. The company that controls the sale of transgenic hybrid corn seeds sells 15 kilos for R$200, with a very high profit rate. This same corn could be produced by family farming itself, and the farmer could reserve the seed he is going to use. To give an example, we need to solve the problem of organic fertilizer. Predatory forms of agriculture are exhausting the natural fertility of the soil, which contains thousands of forms and nutrients.
In general, people, influenced by agribusiness and agrochemical propaganda, think that soil fertility is based solely on NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium), but this is not true. Now, what is the problem we face? How to produce fertile soil? By feeding it with organic fertilizers, which activate microorganisms and life in the soil. In Brazil, there is no one who sells or supplies organic fertilizers on a large scale. Farmers try to do this on their own farms, using animal manure and compost, but this is on a small scale.
For example, in Rio Grande do Sul, we have six thousand hectares of organic rice that need to be fed with organic fertilizers. Feeding six thousand hectares each harvest requires large-scale production. This is where China's experience comes in. During our trips there, where we have a brigade of activists living in Beijing and Shanghai to interact with Chinese agriculture, we discovered that they have developed the production of organic fertilizers from urban waste, with leftovers from family meals, restaurants, tree prunings, and leftovers from fairs and markets. They gather this organic matter, insert bacteria that activate the process of giving new life to this matter, and in seven days they have the production of organic fertilizer.
This process, which we call a bioreactor, involves placing all this organic matter in a large cylinder, like a silo, injecting bacteria, and the bacteria work day and night to produce fertilizer. What we are doing now, and which we reinforced with the arrival of the Chinese delegation at the G20 meeting, is that we want to install units of these factories here in Brazil to produce the fertilizers that agroecology loves. The third important challenge for agroecology and scientific knowledge is agricultural machinery.
You won't be able to produce food for everyone with hoes, and no one wants to work with just hoes anymore. No young farmer dreams of getting a hoe on Christmas Day; he dreams of getting a motorcycle, a computer, something modern, and we believe in that too. Therefore, machines are the only way to increase labor productivity, because with fewer people, you produce more, and you also increase the productivity of the area. Thus, in the same area, you can produce more rice, more beans, more varied products, etc. Again, in Brazil, we have five agricultural machinery factories, all multinationals, such as Fiat, John Deere and New Holland, etc. All of them only make large machines for agribusiness, because their goal is not to solve the problems of farmers, their goal is profit.
They focus on manufacturing large machines to achieve ever-increasing scale and profits. So, we will be saved again by the Chinese, because in China, instead of eight brands, there are eight thousand agricultural machinery factories spread throughout the country. With the agrarian reform carried out between 1949 and 1952, each peasant owns only one hectare. So the machinery industry that they have implemented over the last 30 years, in the reindustrialization of the country, has had to develop machines suitable for only one hectare.
This has resulted in a wide variety of machines. We want to bring these machines here. It will not be through purchases or imports, but rather by establishing partnerships with our cooperatives and state governments, establishing machine factories for the farmers. Here in Brazil, we have already outlined at least five locations where we will put these factories.
Relations with China
The partnership process with China, which has been going on for a long time, has now accelerated the possibilities with the Lula government. Even during the Bolsonaro government, when there was a boycott of China, we began talks through the Northeast Consortium, since all the governors in the region were progressive. The partnership with the Chinese government indicated, as a counterpoint, the China Agricultural University, which is the largest university in the world in agriculture and is responsible for research and prototypes of machines for family farming.
The Chinese Agricultural University called on factories to provide us with 33 different types of machines for testing. These machines arrived in February of this year, and since the Northeast Consortium sponsored this first partnership, it was our duty to test them initially in the Northeast. The machines were unloaded there and used in some areas. Then, we took them to Ceará and Maranhão for testing. In the coming days, before the end of the year, the university made new incentives to factories in China, and we expect the arrival of another 55 machines for testing.
We are establishing a partnership with the National University of Brasília, and these machines will be sent to Brasília to test the specific conditions of the Cerrado and that region of the Central-West. We are all waiting to see what kind of machine will arrive for us to test. This week, we are installing a satellite control system for the machines. So, inside the university, there will be a large computer with panels, and each machine will have, as it were, a chip. Through this chip, messages will be sent via satellite, which will reach the computers at the university, allowing us to monitor fuel consumption, how many hours the machine works, its performance and how many days it has rained in the region where it is located.
A joint venture for agricultural machinery
The model is to set up a new company here in Brazil, a joint venture, where we have already told the Chinese that they could contribute up to 49%. The 51% would be Brazilian, so that the company would be national. So, the 51% Brazilian will be a mix between one of our cooperatives and a Brazilian company that wants to be a partner, you know? And we will seek financing from BNDES and other funds that may be interested. A few days ago we met with the board of directors of the company Tupi, which is owned by Previ, the bank employees. They are the largest shareholders, so Tupi has become a social enterprise.
It is the largest engine manufacturer in Brazil. The directors of Tupi were very interested because they could become partners in the factory and produce the engines here. Instead of importing engines from China, we have the technological capacity to make the engines here. Another example is the project to manufacture small tractors in Maricá, where the city government will also become a partner, ensuring that the jobs will be created for the residents of Maricá, which will generate an increase in income in the city.
The format is more or less this, and we are exactly at this stage of negotiating with Chinese companies. 90% of them are state-owned, and we are evaluating which of them are interested. And, in two years, we will then be able to establish a joint venture with them to manufacture the equipment here in Brazil. Specifically, we are talking about the bioreactor, which is like a large pressure cooker where you put the organic waste and bacteria to work.
The settled families
Unfortunately, agrarian reform is at a standstill. In the 40 years of struggle, we have won land for 450 families, which represents around 8 to 9 million hectares, giving an average of 20 hectares per family. It is important to note that, in these areas, of a total of 8 million hectares, there is 30% of legal reserve, which means that not everything can be cultivated. In Brazilian society, there are still around 3 million landless families, who work as rural wage earners, as sharecroppers and tenants, and who would like to have their own land. What is lacking is the capacity of the MST, the unions and the CPT to help organize these 3 million people to occupy the land. If they do not occupy it, no government in the world will move.
During the Jair Bolsonaro administration, which is now behind us, and over the last six years, including the Michel Temer administration, we have accumulated a backlog of families living in camps, and the governments have not resolved this situation. This week, INCRA completed the registration of all camps, and there are currently around 90 families living in camps in Brazil. Some of them are linked to the MST, but there are also many families linked to other smaller movements, CONTAG, and rural workers' unions.
In Mato Grosso do Sul, there is a movement linked to CUT Rural, which calls itself that, and is camped out in the region. So, we have a liability, and that is our fight with the Ministry of Agrarian Development now. We cannot talk about agrarian reform without resolving the situation of these families who, adding up 2 years of Temer and 4 years of Bolsonaro, total 6 years, and now another 2 years of Lula have gone by. That means 8 years camped out waiting.
Most of these families are struggling to survive. Some manage to plant crops in the occupied area, albeit illegally. Others are camped on the side of the road, where they manage to find work here and there. In addition, some settlers give them land to work, but this is a completely unsustainable situation. There is no point in taking any action if it does not solve the problems of the campers, and we have already told Lula this. As the late Lula would say: Jose Gomes da Silva, the greatest specialist in agrarian reform, who would have turned 100 this year, and gave a historic interview to the magazine Teoria e Debate, for those who are curious, read in Theory and Debate.
He was a fantastic man, a first-rate agronomist. He had an area here in Pirassununga that I think was 700 hectares, cultivated in an exemplary manner, and he was an advocate of agrarian reform as a way of overcoming poverty. He had an expression about agrarian reform that is brilliant, almost in the style of Carlito Maia. He said the following: agrarian reform is like feijoada. You can have bacon, pig's ears, whatever you want to put in the pot. But if you don't have beans, it will never be feijoada.
In agrarian reform, it's the same thing; you can have a lot of complementary measures, but if there's no land, it won't be agrarian reform. So, that's the lesson: read the interview with José Gomes da Silva and you'll learn a little about what agrarian reform is. Without expropriation and without solving the problem of the campers, we can't talk about agrarian reform.
The scammers
I have no doubt about the insane minds of the coup plotters. Let's remember that he was expelled from the army due to his insane behavior. I have the self-interviewed biography of General Ernesto Geisel, which was given to a historian from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation on one condition: that he only publish the book after I die. Just as I have the autobiography of that other general who behaved very badly during the Lula government and later supported Jair Bolsonaro, whom I won't even mention, but he's there in a wheelchair.
When General Ernesto Geisel was asked about his opinion on Congressman Captain Jair Bolsonaro, he said: “I’m not going to give my opinion, because this person is mentally unbalanced.” And that’s why he was expelled from our glorious army. These are insane people who have adopted fascism as an ideology, led by Olavo de Carvalho. The fascism I’m referring to is not a mass movement like it was in Japan and Europe. Here, fascism manifests itself in ideology. Fascism, as an ideology, preaches hatred and violence in political practice in order to gain power. Thus, these gentlemen, from an ideological point of view, are fascists. Why? Because they adopt hatred and violence to obtain and exercise power.
Violence can be trying to destroy your enemy. We, the left-wing people, were morally targeted by what they did with Lula's arrest. Sergio Moro and the Lava Jato gang are fascists, because they used violence to destroy an enemy. Moral violence. Oh, he's a thief, so he has to be arrested. But he wasn't even a thief, and he shouldn't have been arrested. That's the nature of violence, which isn't limited to shooting. Violence also involves publicly demoralizing, as they do with women. fake news and social networks. This sector has the support of other fascist sectors around the world.
I am referring to the Israeli government, which has always supported the government with its instruments. Now, this has been proven, including with the sale of equipment to ABIN, from that Pegasus program, and by providing computers. In the first election, the computers were in Taiwan. In the last election, information circulated that the computers that supported Jair Bolsonaro were in several countries, including Moldova, because Moldova is not in the International Criminal Court.
Thus, they chose a country that would be outside the global justice system. Therefore, it is proven that the computers that helped create the fake news and who spread 80 million lies during the campaign were based in Moldova, which we don't even know exactly where it is, we need to look on the map to find out what part of the world that is. With a fascist ideology that preaches hatred, that is, permanent social tension, and promotes political tension as a method, anything can be expected. Anyone who is willing to kill the president of the republic can be targeted by anyone below him.
But, since they do not adopt the class struggle or the correlation of forces as a method, it is clear that they did not consider themselves, and do not consider themselves, as subject to mass reactions and reactions. We, the MST, if there were a coup, would react. And, certainly, other sectors of the left, the PT, the popular movement and the union movement also reacted. In other words, we are not frogs to die quietly under the ox's hoof, as we used to say in Lagoa Vermelha, my hometown in Rio Grande do Sul.
social networks
The MST's activities and the cause of agrarian reform on social media are managed by our social communications department. They were the ones who received the invitation to go to Flow. I didn't even know it existed, because I'm kind of an outsider in these things, but they insisted: "João Pedro, come on, the guy is not a fascist and he's committed to behaving in a republican manner." So, as our sector decided, I disciplinedly submitted and went there, of course, accompanied by our journalists. I was very surprised, because the questions were all very sensible, I was treated very well and, afterwards, there was still that pre-election atmosphere.
I learned that, in total, they have already reached 5,7 million views. I was very grateful, because no other space, except on National Journal, could provide so much reach. Perhaps, when I went to the CPI, the TV Camera I've also been following along the whole time, and it looks like that's resulted in a lot of views as well.
Now, in general, this is how I behave: I don't have a personal policy, the policy is that of the MST, but I agree with the thesis that the left needs to spread its ideas through what we traditionally call agitation and propaganda. Agitation and propaganda involve two political desires: to agitate is to denounce capitalism, to expose the ills and problems that the people face. Propaganda, on the other hand, is to announce the solution to these problems, that is, to defend our program, which in the case of the MST is to defend popular agrarian reform, among other changes. Now, how do you do agitation and propaganda?
Our theory and practice is that we cannot limit ourselves to a single medium; we must act on all possible fronts. However, the first of these, which we consider the most effective way, is that the best way to agitate and promote is through cultural means, because we need to reach people's hearts. You don't win people over through the rational logic of an argument; you win people over through their hearts, through feelings. And how do you reach people's feelings? You do it through poetry, through music, through theater, through a slogan, something that Carlito Maia was an expert in.
The reality of the left
Over the last three decades, we have been living in times of global crisis. There is a crisis of capitalism, which fortunately generates many contradictions, among them the decline of the American empire, the decline of the dollar and the emergence of the BRICs, which is very important. Thus, there is a crisis of capitalism and its consequences. There is also a crisis of the left in general, because, deep down, left-wing movements originate from the period of industrial capitalism, which had the factory, the union and the workers' party. This world of industrial capitalism has collapsed.
Now, financial capital, rentier capital, large multinationals and agribusiness have emerged and are hegemonic. This requires a renewal of the left, because there is a new social base that needs to be built and that requires new methods. Among these new methods, we always advocate the creation of new international alliances. The alliances that existed in the previous period, where parties only spoke to parties and unions only spoke to unions, are outdated. We need to create large international alliances of the working class under the aegis of unity, anti-imperialism.
Imperialism is leading to a real risk, including the risk of an atomic war. Imperialism is causing genocide in Gaza, genocide in Syria, genocide in Sudan, and we cannot remain silent. Therefore, our global unity must be the defeat of the US empire. I am referring to this because we, the MST and La Via Campesina, have been vehement in defending the Maduro government and Venezuela. Why? Because who is anti-imperialist in Latin America today? Few governments and few countries, among them, of course, Cuba, which has been anti-imperialist for 60 years, and Venezuela. Therefore, we must join all those who are anti-imperialist. We want new spaces for international articulation under the banner of US anti-imperialism.
*João Pedro Stedile is a member of the national leadership of the Landless Workers Movement (MST).
Text established from the interview given to the portal Focus of the Perseu Abramo Foundation.
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