Taking Back Farmland In Brazil

Agrarian reform is a big issue for the impoverished in Brazil. Some activists are using radical methods to forcibly re-distribute farmland to the country's urban and rural poor. One group is the Movimento Sem Terra or the Landless Movement.

"One of the biggest debates jeopardizing the Movimento's legitimacy is whether or not they are stealing or occupying land. Under provisions within the constitution, the Brazilian government must seize land that is deemed underutilized or unproductive, often by forcing the owner to sell at below market price. The land is then earmarked for agrarian reform. The Landless Movement identifies which farms have been seized, and sends groups to camp along the perimeter to accelerate the process and ensure that the land goes to needy families. With the Movimento's red flag fastened to lengths of bamboo, these groups wait in their temporary camps for months, even years, for the government to grant them the legal title."

"'In 1940, 80 percent of the Brazilian population lived in the countryside, and now it's the opposite. . . . With the introduction of machines and agro-toxics, the wealthy farm owners didn't need hired help any more, so all of these rural peasants were expelled from the land and forced to migrate to the cities to find jobs,' says Jose Padua, a professor of Environmental History at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro."