Landless Workers Movement in Brazil

No other sector of Brazil’s society has suffered as much as the rural poor from the country’s insertion into the global economy. Policies responding to international financial institutions and designed to soften trade protections have spelled high interest rates, increased competition from subsidized food imports, the end of government agricultural extension services, and sluggish land reform programs. All of this has institutionalized penury, hunger, and joblessness in the Brazilian countryside. Thousands of families have been forced to abandon bankrupt farms and flee rural violence to join the ranks of the urban poor.
The hardships in the era of globalization come on top of this South American nation’s longstanding problem with its record for one of the worst land distribution patterns in the world. The wealthiest 20% of the Brazilian population owns 90% of the land. Much of that property is not in production, used for ranching that benefits a minority, held for tax write-offs, or occupied in producing export crops; while at the same time millions of families without employment or land for subsistence agriculture go hungry.
The distress in Brazil’s countryside has given rise to one of Latin America’s largest social movements, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (Landless Workers’ Movement, or MST). Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, or in Portuguese Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), is the largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless members organized in 23 out 27 states.
The MST has won land titles for more than 350,000 families in 2,000 settlements as a result of MST actions, and 180,000 encamped families currently await government recognition. Land occupations are rooted in the Brazilian Constitution, which says land that remains unproductive should be used for a “larger social function."
The U.S. has an important stake in Brazil's continued economic stability. U.S. financial institutions hold a sizable chunk of Brazil's $260 billion public debt, and the nation's 170 million consumers represent a key market for corporations such as General Motors Corp., Whirlpool Corp. and Citigroup Inc.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=7713
http://www.mstbrazil.org/?q=about