Farmers with the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) protest the concentration of land ownership in Brazil, during a Feb. 21 demonstration in support of the occupation of part of the Agropecuaria Santa Mônica estate, 150 km from Brasilia. Credit: Courtesy of the MST

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 27 2015 (IPS)

In Brazil, one of the countries with the highest concentration of land ownership in the world, some 200,000 peasant farmers still have no plot of their own to farm – a problem that the first administration of President Dilma Rousseff did little to resolve.

In its assessment of the situation in the 2011-2014 period, the Brazilian Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) found the worst progress in that period in terms of agrarian reform in the last 20 years, one of the church-based organisation’s coordinators, Isolete Wichinieski, told IPS.

“Historically, there has been a high concentration of land in Brazil,” she said. But what is worrisome, she added, is that during the first presidency of Rousseff, whose second term started on Jan. 1, 2015, “land ownership has become even more concentrated.”

“There was a fall in the numbers of new rural settlements and of land titling in indigenous territories and ‘quilombos’ (communities of the descendants of African slaves), while on the other hand, investment in agribusiness and agro-industry grew,” said Wichinieski.

Social movements had hoped that Rousseff, who belongs to the left-wing Workers’ Party like her predecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), would take up the banner of democratisation of land ownership.

But her government’s economic policies have focused on incentives for agribusiness and agro-industry, mining and major infrastructure projects.

According to the CPT report, during the first Rousseff administration (2011-2014), 103,746 families were granted land under the government’s agrarian reform programme. But that figure is actually misleading, because in 73 percent of the cases, the land settlement process was already in progress before the president took office, and the families had already been counted in previous years.

If only the new families settled on plots of their own during Rousseff’s first administration are counted, the total shrinks to 28,000.

The government reported that in 2014 it regularised the situation of just 6,289 families – a number considered insignificant by the CPT.

Since 1995 agrarian reform was given a new boost, with the creation of a special ministry answering directly to the president, and other legal instruments, largely due to the intense lobbying and protests throughout the country by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST).

As a result, during the presidency of Luis Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003), 540,704 families were given land, and 614,088 were settled on farms during Lula’s two terms (2003-2011), according to the National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), which reported that 9,128 rural settlements have been created since 2000.

The Dom Tomás Balduíno camp, along the river that crosses the Agropecuaria Santa Mônica estate, next to the first crops planted on the 400 hectares occupied by landless Brazilian peasant farmers. Credit: Courtesy of the MST

In order for land reform to be effective, the CPT argues, more settlements must be created and the concentration of rural property ownership must be reduced in this country of 202 million people. But the organisation does not believe Rousseff is moving in that direction, Wichinieski said.

Agrarian reform was not on the agenda of the campaign that led to the president’s reelection in October, and the new government includes names from the powerful rural caucus in Congress, which represents agribusiness and agro-industry.

The agriculture minister is former senator Kátia Abreu, the president of the National Confederation of Agriculture. She surprised people when she stated in a Feb. 5 interview with the newspaper Folha de São Paulo that there are no “latifundium” or large landed estates in Brazil.

“Abreu has backwards, outdated views of agriculture,” complained Wichinieski. “She denies that there is forced labour in the countryside, she isn’t worried about preserving the environment, and she argues in favour of the intensive use of agrochemicals in food production.”

The conflict over land has intensified, according to the CPT, with the expansion of livestock-raising and monoculture farming of soy, sugarcane, maize and cotton, and growing speculation by large landowners with close ties to politicians.

A typical case

One example is the case of the 20,000-hectare Agropecuaria Santa Mônica estate, 150 km from the national capital, Brasilia, in the state of Goiás, part of which has been occupied by families belonging to the MST.

The property belongs to Senator Eunício Oliveira, considered the wealthiest candidate for governor in Brazil in the last elections.

In the Senate, Oliveira heads the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, Rousseff’s main ally in Congress. He served as communications minister under Lula in 2004-2005 and last year lost the elections for governor of the state of Ceará.

The landless farmers occupying 400 hectares of the Santa Mônica estate sell their agroecological products in nearby towns, promoting chemical-free family farming. Credit: Courtesy of the MST

Valdir Misnerovicz, one of the leaders of the MST, told IPS that the estate is unproductive and that its only purpose at this time is land speculation.

Strategically located between the municipalities of Alexânia, Abadiânia and Corumbá, Santa Mônica represents the largest land occupation by the MST in the last 15 years.

It all started on Aug. 31, when 3,000 families marched on foot and in 1,800 vehicles to the estate, part of which they occupied.

Since then, more than 2,000 men, women, children and elderly persons have been living in a camp and control 400 hectares of the estate. They are determined to win a portion of the land to farm.

This is one of the MST’s strategies, said Misnerovicz. “We occupy large areas of unproductive land. In the camp we grow a variety of food like green leafy vegetables, manioc, maize, rice, beans and squash. All of the families plant healthy food in chemical-free agroecological community gardens,” he said.

The tents in the Dom Tomás Balduíno camp were set up on the bank of a river that cuts across the estate, which comprises 90 different properties that the senator purchased over the last two decades.

“The day we got there, they tried to keep us out but there were thousands of us. We are never armed. Our strength is in the number of peasants who accompany us,” said Misnerovicz.

In November, a court ruled that Oliveira has the right to recover the property. But the MST leader is confident that despite the risk that the families will be evicted, they will be successful in their bid for the Santa Mônica estate to be expropriated under the land reform programme.

Misnerovicz said the government itself has encouraged the families occupying the land to continue negotiating.

“Then it would be possible, after a year, to make the biggest rural settlement in recent times in Brazil. We were with the president in January, who committed to a plan with targets for settling (MST) families camped around the country,” he said.

INCRA has avoided taking a public position on this specific case. But it pointed out that, by law, “all of the occupied properties are off-limits for inspections to evaluate the situation with a view to agrarian reform.”

The administrator of Santa Mônica, Ricardo Augusto, told IPS that the occupied area is productive agricultural property where soy, maize and beans are grown.

“The purchase of the property was notarised. The MST is not telling the truth. We advocate a negotiated, peaceful solution. Productive, occupied land can’t be expropriated, and there is no interest in selling the property,” he said.

But João Pedro, who was granted a plot of land in a municipality near Santa Mônica, sees things very differently.

During a Feb. 21 demonstration in favour of the occupation, near the camp, the farmer said the families camping there were merely seeking the enforcement of Brazil’s laws: “the land has a social function, and that’s all we want – for the constitution to be applied.”

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Valerie Dee

A transnational pesticides manufacturer is sponsoring the Vila Isabel samba school, which won the main contest in Rio de Janeiro’s carnival this year, raising questions about financing mechanisms for “the greatest show on earth”, as carnival is described in Brazil.

No expenses spared: rehearsal of a carnival show paying homage to Brazil’s small farmers. Credit: Official web site for Scuola de Samba Vila Isabel

The five-million-dollar contribution from the German corporation BASF that helped the Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Unidos de Vila Isabel to victory had already been criticised before the parade by the Landless Rural Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST) and other social organisations that make up the Permanent Campaign Against Agrochemicals and For Life.

“We deeply regret the opportunism shown by BASF in using the Vila Isabel samba school in order to promote itself,” João Pedro Stédile, a historic leader of the MST, told IPS.

Rosa Magalhães, the creator of the “samba-enredo” (theme song) of Vila Isabel, tried to minimise the criticisms, calling the controversy the result of the samba school being selected by the judges as the best of 12 participating in the final parade through the Marquês de Sapucaí Sambódromo, a stadium built in Rio de Janeiro specially for carnival parades.

The Vila Isabel samba school was judged the most creative, most organised and most rhythmic, and having the best costumes and the best music in this year’s traditional carnival festival held Feb. 10-12.

Its leaders say the controversy over the sponsorship, which caused upsets in the days prior to the parade, is a thing of the past.

“BASF united the greatest shows on earth: carnival and agriculture,” the company trumpeted in a communiqué referring to the winning samba-theme lyrics: “La Vila sings to Brazil, the world’s granary: add water to the beans, for we have another guest…” which are about life and work in the rural areas of the country.

“None of this would be possible without the partnership with BASF, who, like us, believed in the idea from the outset and made every effort to contribute to this carnival victory,” said Vila Isabel’s president, Wilson da Silva, better known as Moisés.

BASF’s Crop Protection Division described the firm, in a communiqué sent to IPS, as “a leader in the defence of agriculture and a strong ally of agribusiness, offering well-established and innovative fungicides, insecticides and herbicides.”

But spokespersons for the Permanent Campaign Against Agrochemicals and For Life said rather that it is “the third largest company for toxic agrochemical sales in our country over the last five years”.

Toxic chemicals used in agriculture are responsible for the deaths of 10,000 Brazilians a year and poison at least 25,000 small farmers, says the Permanent Campaign, citing Health Ministry figures.

The news of Vila Isabel’s victory coincided with information from the Superior Labour Court on a dispute between BASF and the Anglo-Dutch company Shell, and victims of pollution in 2002 from a pesticide factory in Paulínia, a rural municipality in the southern state of São Paulo.

According to the toxicology report presented to the court, pesticides polluted groundwater and soil throughout the region, affecting more than 1,000 people and directly causing 62 fatalities.

“We were saved by the genius of Martinho da Vila (one of the composers of Vila Isabel’s music this year), who wrote a spectacular samba focused on different agricultural activities, and avoided a lament on agribusiness,” Stédile said.

“The singing was great, and so was the choreography; and BASF was unable to profit from its subliminal propaganda because the people in the sambódromo and the television audience had no way of linking the parade with agribusiness, and less so with toxic pesticides,” he said.

The poisonous fumes may not have remained in the air at the sambódromo, but there was a discussion that is repeated every year about the financing of Rio’s sumptuous carnival, which costs at least five million dollars for each of the competing samba schools, all striving not to be relegated to the “second division” of the contest.

Part of the festival is financed by television broadcast rights, ticket sales for the sambódromo, and a contribution from the Rio de Janeiro city government. But there are never enough resources for a carnival that is now considered a “professional” show.

What publicist Carlos Perrone, a promotor of “carnival marketing”, calls the “corporate carnival” comes into play when financial support is needed.

A report by the state TV Brasil indicates that this year alone, eight out of the 12 samba schools participating in the Special Group received corporate sponsorship.

Sponsors include a spectrum of celebrities, municipal governments from the interior of the country, German and Korean companies and even a horse breeders’ association, as well as BASF.

“The problem with sponsorship is that one has to praise everything about the sponsor as it if were all marvellous, whereas in reality some things are good and some are bad,” Milton Cunha, a carnival artist, said in an interview on TV Brasil.

Marcelo Freixo, a state legislator for the Socialism and Freedom Party, has made himself unpopular with the samba schools for questioning the financing mechanisms.

In an interview with IPS, Freixo, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Rio de Janeiro, said he is not against the carnival heritage, but thinks the mayor’s offices should finance themes with “cultural returns”, which “does not prevent private sponsorship for each school”.

Freixo would like to open a “wide public debate” on these untouchable representatives of the most internationally famous form of Rio culture, and to this end he praised the solution achieved by the samba school sponsored by BASF.

“The songwriters were skillful enough not to create propaganda for agribusiness, let alone for toxic pesticides. That cannot have been easy for them, but as they are excellent artists they managed to go down another road. La Vila’s parade was really beautiful,” he said.

Up to about two decades ago, the carnival parade was financed almost entirely by mafias running illegal gambling on the “jogo do bicho” (numbers game). “Bicheiros”, or heads of such mafias, have even been arrested in full view on the sambódromo parade ground.

This is why many see private and public financing as a far preferable solution for funding the carnival.

“Illegal financing should not even be countenanced. If it is illegal, it is illegal, and that’s that,” said Freixo.

Now the carnival is over for another year, and preparations for next year’s begin. Meanwhile, sponsors are already deciding what chances different samba schools have of winning the coveted first place in the Marquês de Sapucaí sambódromo in 2014.

(END)