MST camp in DF receives parliamentary front for

This Friday morning (22), the Noelton Angélico Camp, of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), hosted the first meeting of 2024 of the DF Parliamentary Front for Agrarian Reform, Family Farming and Agroecology.

According to the campers, the issues that are at the center of the struggle for rural workers in the DF and surrounding areas begin with obtaining land and creating new settlements, environmental licensing, settlement infrastructure, rural education, agro-industrialization, productive organization, technical, social and environmental assistance and technical assistance and rural extension, access to inputs, access to credits and also debt renegotiation and commercialization.

Organized by district deputy Gabriel Magno (PT), the activity was attended by representatives of social movements, trade unions and government bodies, such as the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) and the Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Company of the Federal District ( Emater).

“It’s time for Emater to teach these people how to access public policies”, highlighted the superintendent of Incra-DF, Claudia Farinha, who highlighted: “it’s been many years since the rural population has been heard. It’s been a seven year delay. The reality of the Federal District is alarming and the challenges imposed are countless and we will only be able to overcome the obstacles with the effective participation of workers and this broad front”.

According to Marco Antônio Baratto, from the MST district leadership, the unitary field has been provoking parliamentarians for years, knowing that the front is an important powerful instrument for debate, from obtaining land and the legal part, to elements involving infrastructure, quality of life, which involves the concrete sense of being settled with dignity.

“This is the first time that a Front has been created within the Legislative Chamber and this is an act of courage, as we only have six deputies out of 24 within the house who are on our side. Now we need to have guaranteed access to these public services, and enhance so that these are of quality based on our accumulation, quality health and education, respecting what we believe”, he stated.

According to the president of the Front, Gabriel Magno, it is possible to debate and monitor the application of the social function of land on rural properties in the DF, promoting support for family and agroecological agricultural production, in addition to developing land and rural land use legislation.

Adonilton Rodrigues, from the MST national directorate / Photo: Thamy Frisselli

For Adonilton Rodrigues, from the national directorate of the MST in the DF and surrounding areas, it is important, after seven years of dismantling public policies for the countryside, that rural workers return to occupy these spaces. “We need to organize the issue of productivity and check the issue of agribusiness, which where it arrives is easy to dominate. We need to organize these agendas, as we encounter many difficulties when we arrive at these bodies and talk about the settlement and the answer is that they are preservation areas and reserve, but when it comes to building condominiums or planting strawberries full of poison, this can happen.”

The meeting was attended by federal deputy Érika Kokay (PT), representatives of the mandates of district deputies Chico Vigilante (PT), Ricardo Vale, the representative of Emater, João Pires, the president of the Union of Rural Workers of the DF, Carliene dos Santos and the head of the SR/DF and Entorno land division, José Raimundo Sepeda.

The next meeting is scheduled for April 5th, this time at Camp 8 March, in Planaltina.

Land reform

During the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro, between 2019 and 2022, agrarian reform reached a negative record. According to Incra, only 9,228 families were settled during its administration. In comparison, during his two terms, between 1995 and 2002, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB) settled just over half a million families. In the PT governments of Lula and Dilma, between 2003 and 2016, there were 747,777 families.

Now, the MST fights for the resumption and strengthening of agrarian reform. According to Baratto, for this to happen, it is essential that Incra’s budget be restructured.

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Source: BdF Federal District

Editing: Márcia Silva