Defence of agrifood systems - Roots, Territories and pathways in the Amazon, Cerrado & Northeast of Brazil - Food Systems Summit Dialogues
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Defence of agrifood systems
Roots, Territories and pathways in the
Amazon, Cerrado & Northeast of Brazil
A contribution to the Independent Dialogue
and Food Systems Summit 2021
University of Strathclyde and Network for Social Justice and Human Rights
Defence of Agrifood Systems: Roots, Territories and Pathways in the Amazon,
Cerrado and Northeast of Brazil
July 2021
“We are peoples of soils, forests and waters, our matter is mother
earth, our veins, our rivers; we are one. We just want to continue
with our ways of life inherited from our ancestors and in balance
with our lands. This is the fundamental meaning of our food
sovereignty. Our territories are spaces for the living and
conservation of those who depend on them to continue with our life
plans – planting without pesticides, keeping our forests and rivers
healthy, our sacred places and places of leisure. As we fight for
public policies and rights to education, health, transportation, roads,
basic sanitation, our territories are being plundered and violated by
new mines, monocultures, hydrodams, highways, and ports - we feel
kidnapped in our own space. We hope that this international dialogue
can consider the threats to our food system in its entirety;
disconnecting it is wrong and building alternatives without territory
is illusory” 1
Organisers:
University of Strathclyde (Scotland) and Social Network for Justice and Human Rights,
with Núcleo Quilombola de Ação Vila União/Campinas, Universidade Federal de Mato
Grosso, Comissão Pastoral da Terra, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Movimento Xingu
Vivo para Sempre, Centre for the Political Economy of Labour.
Contacts:
Brian Garvey , Universidade de Strathclyde, 199 Cathedral Street Glasgow G4 0QU.
brian.garvey@strath.ac.uk https://www.politicaleconomyoflabour.org/
Maria Luisa Mendonça, Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, Alameda Barão
de Limeira, 1038 - Campos Elíseos, São Paulo - SP, 01202-002
rede@social.org.br https://www.social.org.br
1
Ana Laide Barbosa e Luciane Barbosa Lopes
Contents
Introduction Maria Luisa Mendonça & Brian Garvey
(Un)sustainable Food Systems in Mato Marcia Leopoldina Montanari Corrêa,
Grosso: a look at the Bianca Vásquez Pistório & Wanderlei
'granary of the world' Antônio Pignati
A view from the soil: agrarian reform Marcia Leopoldina Montanari Corrêa,
and the troubles of living from the Bianca Vásquez Pistório
land in Mato Grosso
The dismantling of territorial public Marcelo Rodrigues Mendonça, Adriano
policies and the return of Brazil to the Rodrigues de Oliveira. Ângela Maria
global map of hunger Martins Peixoto & Karinne de Pina Silva
Land grabbing, deforestation and Mauricio Torres
expropriation in Brazil’s Amazon
Production of moncultural knowledge Ana Laide Barbosa & Luciane Barbosa
and destruction of diverse wisdoms Lopes
Financialisation of agrindustrailaised and Maria Luisa Mendonça & Fabio Pitta
marketised systems
A view from the forest: the daily Ageu Lobo Pereira
threat of violence
Conclusions: preparing the soil for an Brian Garvey & Maria Luisa Mendonça
Independent Dialogue
Contributors (in order of contribution) Maria Luisa Mendonça PhD in Human Geography from USP, visiting researcher at the Center for place, Culture and Politics - CUNY Graduate Center, co-director of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights and author of the book Political Economy of Agribusiness, Editora Annablume, 2018. Brian Garvey PhD in Geography, Researcher and Professor at the Department of Labour, Employment and Organization, University of Strathclyde, Scotland and Coordinator of the Center for the Political Economy of Labour. Marcia Leopoldina Montanari Corrêa Professor at the Collective Health Institute/UFMT; Researcher at the Center for Environmental Studies and Workers' Health/Institute of Collective Health/UFMT. Bianca Vásquez Pistório Doctoral Student of the Graduate Program in Public Health/UFMT; Researcher at the Center for Environmental Studies and Workers' Health/Institute of Collective Health/UFMT. Wanderlei Antônio Pignati Professor of the Graduate Program in Public Health/UFMT; Researcher at the Center for Environmental Studies and Workers' Health/Institute of Collective Health/UFMT. Marcelo Rodrigues Mendonça Professor of the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Courses at the Institute of Socioenvironmental Studies, Federal University of Goiás (UFG); Researcher of the Study and Research Group on Work, Territory and Public Policy Adriano Rodrigues de Oliveira Professor of the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Courses at the Institute of Social and Environmental Studies/UFG; Researcher of the Study and Research Group on Work, Territory and Public Policy Ângela Maria Martins Peixoto Doctoral Student of the Postgraduate Course at the Institute of Social and Environmental Studies/UFG; Researcher of the Study and Research Group on Work, Territory and Public Policies
Karinne de Pina Silva Master's Student of the Postgraduate Course at the Institute of Social and Environmental Studies/UFG; Researcher of the Study and Research Group on Work, Territory and Public Policies Maurício Torres Doctor in Human Geography from the University of São Paulo, with research on territorial conflicts involving traditional peoples and communities in the Amazon. Professor at the Amazon Agriculture Institute (Ineaf), at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA). Ana Laide Barbosa Amazônian fisherwoman, great- granddaughter of the enslaved, social educator, component of the Xingu Vivo Para Sempre movement and master's degree student in sustainability with traditional peoples and territories - MESPT, Universidade do Brasília Luciane Barbosa Lopes Black woman, Marajoara, quilombola, great-granddaughter of enslaved, granddaughter of healer, social educator in the community of Quilombos Remnant of Vila União/Campinas, component of the Quilombola Action Nucleus of Vila União/Campinas, Graduated in Biology-UEPA, undergraduate in Integrated Degree in Science, Mathematics and Languages IEMCI-UFPA. Fábio Pitta Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography at USP and Coordinator of Research Projects at the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights. Ageu Lobo Pereira President of the association of the Montanha and Mangabal communities, Pará Artwork: Margherita Brunori Images: Debora Lima, Arran Busnelo-Garvey, Maurício Torres, Campanha Permanente Contra os Agrotóxicos e Pela Vida Additional transcription and translation: Francis Portes Virginio, Jessica Enara Vian, Brian Garvey
Introduction Communities, movements and social organizations defend the right to food, agroecology, environmental protection, social and economic justice, gender equality, rights of peasants, Quilombolas and Indigenous Peoples. This Independent Dialogue will discuss food systems in the Amazon, Cerrado and Northeast Brazil as a contribution to the FAO Food Systems Conference 2021. The meeting will be a space for organizations, social movements and research institutions to share experiences, considering ways to defend, improve or transforming food systems to build social justice and environmental protection. The purpose of this collaborative report is to point out some of the main problems that recur in the dominant agro-industrial model and its relentless commodification of natural resources and human labor. The report denounces the damage caused by agribusiness to the environment, health and territorial sovereignty, but also shows how rural communities organize themselves to defend their right to land and their ecological food production strategies. The articles in this report reveal how public policies favor the advancement of agribusiness in Brazil through false developmental discourses, which mask violent inequalities and make invisible the fundamental knowledge of riverine, forest and agrarian communities that build food security and sovereignty. The report brings our common conclusion that agribusiness can never be sustainable. Thus, the organizations that participate in this dialogue seek to open space for a debate based on the concrete reality of the situation in the countryside, which can identify the roots and new paths for the construction of ecological agro-food systems. The event, "Defense of agro-food systems: Roots, Territories and Paths in the Amazon, Cerrado and Northeast of Brazil", will produce analyzes and proposals to ensure the right to land, the protection of ecological agriculture, water sources, biodiversity and of the culture of rural communities. Participation will include representatives from rural communities, social organizations and research institutions. The results of the discussion among the participants will be systematised in a report to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
(Un)sustainable Food Systems in Mato Grosso: a look at the 'granary of the world' Introduction Food systems cover the entire range of actors and their value-adding activities involved in the production, processing, distribution, consumption and final destination of food products from agriculture, forestry and fisheries or from parts of broader economic, social and natural environments where they are inserted.1 In general, food systems are composed of subsystems interconnected with each other and with other systems, such as energy production, for example, in such a way that structural changes in one system reverberate transformations in another, forming a complex and multifaceted web. A food system must consider economic, social and environmental sustainability, in addition to establishing guidelines that support the fulfillment of the Human Right to Adequate Food and the Sovereignty and Food Security of Territories. The discussion presented in this text is based on some of the results of integrated and participatory studies and research carried out by the Center for Environmental Studies and Workers' Health of the Collective Health Institute – UFMT, in the Juruena River Basin region/MT, Southern Region of Mato Grosso and territories of farmers and family farmers and traditional peoples (indigenous and quilombolas). The purpose was to highlight some socio-sanitary-environmental risk factors related to the agricultural commodity production model in the state. Its production is based on the use of business agriculture, technified, based on chemical inputs, transgenics and high-tech agricultural machinery, occupying extensive areas for the cultivation of few species, under the control of financial groups and corporations and great support from the State. In this sense, the discussion on unsustainable food systems goes through: - Recognize the unequal occupation of food and commodity production territories; - Imposition of a Production Model for chemical-dependent agricultural commodities generating a process of imposing contamination of water, food and the environment; - Infrastructure and financial support with public resources for the production of commodities in contrast to the scarce resources for sustainable family farming; - Hunger and food insecurity in the countryside and in cities; - Impacts on social relations and violence in the countryside;
- Damages to the Health of populations and environments where they are most produced.
The territories of the interior of Brazil are today mostly occupied by mechanized
and technological agriculture, under business management strongly associated with
liberal perspectives of capital accumulation, which organizes and inserts itself in all fields
of social, economic, political, sanitary and the environmental life.
Under a neo-Malthusian discourse of expanding the productive capacities of
territories to meet the growing world demand for food, agribusiness is justified, self-
regulated and legitimates a discourse of homogenization of consumption, expanding
capital accumulation by plundering natural resources, exploiting territories in all their
productive capacity and exposing populations to the risks of this degrading production
process2.
The recent process of agribusiness expansion, which is consolidated in practically
all Brazilian biomes, is strongly strengthened in the Cerrado, reconciles the interests of
agro-chemical-food-financial conglomerates, therefore production for export
(commodities), such as: a soy, corn, cotton and more recently sugarcane alcohol3. The
current expansion of agribusiness in the cerrado is seen by many government officials,
economists and scientists as inevitable and as a generator of progress and wealth, but
these activities can act as a source of pressure that harms the health of ecosystems and
various affected population groups, including generations future 4,5.
Uses of productive territories in Mato Grosso
Studies carried out in the Juruena River Basin region, covering the municipalities of
Sapezal, Campo Novo do Parecis and Campos de Júlio, evidenced the concentration of
land for the production of commodities. In Mato Grosso, 76% of the agricultural area is
occupied for the production of commodities, the Juruena River Basin region occupies
98% of its territory for the production of Soy, Corn, Cotton, Sunflower and Sugarcane
and 2% of the territory for food production, following the trend in the state of Mato
Grosso of reprimarizing the economy and placing the state at the forefront of the hanking
of the largest national consumer of pesticides. For each hectare planted, an average of 10
to 20 liters of pesticides are used, which places these municipalities among the largest
pesticide consumers in the state6. The commodities that most used pesticides per hectare
are cotton (28 liters/hectare); followed by Soy (17.7 liters per hectare) and corn (7.4 liters
per hectare), but in proportion to the planted area, soybean used 60%, corn 20%, cotton
10% and around 10 % are sprayed on other plantations (cane, pastures, sunflower and
rice).7
The intense use of pesticides is aggravated by aerial and land spraying close to
urban areas and few family farmers, affecting and even making local food production
unfeasible, resulting in situations of production losses and increased dependence on food
produced in other regions for local supply. Such findings make local food production
vulnerable and increase dependence on food from other regions, completing a cycle that
affects the food self-sufficiency of territories and families6. Furthermore, they affect the
health of populations and contaminate water sources, animals, food and natural forests.
Reports from residents of municipalities where there is intense agricultural production
and use of pesticides on the events of exposure to pesticides during aerial and land
spraying are common.
“You have no idea how much we are exposed, it's a plane passing by all the time,
the car gets wet with pesticides, when we come on the road, we pass by an airplane
spraying, we are directly exposed here. You can already smell poison inside the
city, it's really poisonous, it's very serious, it's a complicated business, it's
revolting in fact.” (Juruena Project Interview, 2016)
The respondent reported that he had already been washed by pesticides, when the plane
passed, the pesticide hit the skin, eyes, and was inhaled. He also reported that 12 years
ago he was unblocking the spray and when unblocking the poison he fell in his arms and
currently he has allergies, sometimes he appears sore. At the time he went to the doctor
and he said that there would be no problem and prescribed only an ointment. He said that
he did not feel headache, nausea, dizziness" (Report of Field Diary, interview Projeto
Juruena, 2018)
“It is very common to use poison planes in the region and the smell of the product
is very strong. My uncles on the farm always claim they are uncomfortable when
they come into contact with the product, they never take medication, as they
believed it was nothing serious.” (Juruena Project Interview, 2018)
“You can't produce anything here, when the poison comes, the plants are all
burned, the papaya is hardened” (Interview Projeto Juruena, 2019).
Despite the high rates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and large tracts of arable land,
the concentration of income and land is an evident phenomenon in the studied region.
Inequities in the occupation of territories make the population residing in the
municipalities vulnerable due to occupational, food and environmental exposure to
pesticides and chemical fertilizers and other constraints resulting from the environmental
exploitation that the model imposes8. The increase in deforestation in agricultural
commodity production regions, recorded by INPE9, as well as constant fires, are
frequently reported by settler families and also by indigenous populations and
quilombolas, whose territories are surrounded or isolated by crops.
The absence of spaces for local food production and also spaces for the
commercialization of family farming products contrasts with a very well-structured
network composed of several companies, storage units, cereal and cotton processors and
other structures related to the production chain of the agribusiness in these
municipalities10.
Repercussions for Human Health and
Food Safety
Among the various impacts of the
agribusiness production chain, the most
relevant for health and the environment
are acute and chronic pollution and
poisoning related to pesticide spraying. In
agricultural production ("chemical-
dependent"), the use of pesticides is
intended to kill insects, fungi, weeds and other undesirable living organisms in crops,
which is why their characteristics are toxic. Air and land spraying are intentional and also
affect the environment, rural workers, food and the population residing in these
territories.14
With regard to acute poisonings, represented by exogenous poisonings by pesticides, the
greatest number of occupational poisonings is found in soybean crops, followed by corn
crops. There were 04 deaths caused by exposure to agricultural pesticides in the period
from 2007 to 2016. Of the 141 municipalities in Mato Grosso, 83 reported occupational
poisoning by agricultural pesticides and of the 54 municipalities characterized as a high
agricultural plantation zone, 14 remained silent over the 10 years . The Work Accident
Communication (CAT) was issued in 10% of the occupational poisonings notified by
SINAN15.Despite being a state producer of agricultural commodities and the largest national
consumer of pesticides in its crops, there is underreporting of cases of harassment in the
official health information systems (SINAN/MS). However, in a recent study of Self-
Reported Health Conditions in Mato Grosso's municipalities, the most cited morbidities
were: respiratory problems, acute poisoning, psychological disorders, kidney diseases
and cancers. The underreporting of pesticide poisoning was identified, from 1 to 20 cases
in Campos de Júlio; 1 for 77 cases in Campo Novo do Parecis and 100% of underreporting
in Sapezal. Associations were found between sociodemographic variables and exposure
to pesticides and the reported morbidities16.
Among the most used pesticides in Mato Grosso, Glyphosate, 2,4-D, Acephate, Atrazine,
Chlorpyrifos, Haloxyfop-P-Methyl, Imidacloprid, Malathion, Mancozeb, Paraquat,
Fipronil and Methomyl are highlighted7. The relationship between exposure to pesticides
and illness was proven by studies that showed positive and significant correlations
between the use of pesticides and incidences of pesticide poisoning: acute, subacute
(foetal malformation) and chronic (infant and juvenile cancer), in regions with higher
production agricultural. The spatialization of information made it possible to identify
priority municipalities for Health Surveillance and the development of intersectoral
actions to prevent the impacts of pesticide use on health and the environment7. It was
concluded that the regions of the state that produce the most and use pesticides the most,
the higher the incidence of those diseases mentioned above.
A study on mental health in a settlement showed an attempt to regularize the land by a
group of rural workers, in a region where the logic of large estates and agribusiness
prevails, which implies the social suffering of these rural workers. This group is
threatened by land grabbing on the part of farmers (rural companies) who do not accept
that group's search for autonomy17.
The work process in agribusiness, associated with job migration, abusive work, lack of
support from companies for monitoring in mental health, discrimination and resistance to
psychosocial/psychological/psychiatric care, exposure to pesticides, proximity to the
plantations of their homes, hegemony in territorial control, they influence the suffering
that can result in suicide and suicide attempts18,19. Exposure to pesticides is also related
to the increase in respiratory diseases among children20,21, the increase in cases of
childhood cancer, especially leukemia22,23, congenital malformations and abortions23,24.
Recent studies have shown an increase in severe food insecurity among rural Brazilian
25,26
families according to data from the POF - IBGE, 44% of rural families in Brazilpresented Food Insecurity between mild and severe levels in Brazil between 2017 and
2018. This number has increased in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and with the
serious political and economic crisis that Brazil is experiencing.
The results of the survey carried out in December 2020 by the Brazilian Network for
Research on Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security27 show that in the three months
prior to data collection, less than half of Brazilian households (44.8%) had their own
residents. (as) in Food Safety. Of the others, 55.2% were in Food Insecurity; 9% lived
with hunger, that is, they were in a situation of severe AI, this condition being worse in
rural households. Severe AI was six times higher when this person was unemployed, and
four times higher when this person was unemployed.
Resistance and struggle for land in Mato Grosso
There are many situations of violence experienced daily by rural, forest and river
communities in Mato Grosso. Whether the violence is unleashed28, or the symbolic
violence determined by the imposition of one production model over another, it becomes
difficult or even impracticable to produce other forms of food that are not through the use
of chemical inputs and monocultures.
In a Sustainable Development Project implemented two years ago via agrarian reform, in
the municipality of Novo Mundo, in Mato Grosso, until the land was taken over by the
group of rural workers who fought for the land, there were many conflicts with local
farmers. And it is clear for those who take the position of fighting for land, the risks
involved can even lead to death:
“I understood that I needed to fight for the land and settle when I understood that
I would never be able to buy land and that there was land from the union (...). But
I knew it was violent, there were already 7 deaths in here, 2 were known. I spent
12 years on canvas, today I'm here after so much struggle”. (Interview with settled
worker, 2019)
The information recorded in the document Conflicts in the Field organized by CPT28,
presented 1,576 incidents of conflicts over land in 2020 in Brazil, the highest number
registered since 1985, 25% higher than 2019 and 57.6% in 2018, with a significant
increase in violence against indigenous peoples, situations of conflict over water,
deforestation/deforestation of the territories and due to the intensive occupation of thesurroundings for agricultural production, for the exploitation of mining and hydroelectric plants. In Mato Grosso, 193 conflicts were registered, the majority for Land and Water, involving indigenous peoples and quilombolas, as well as settled and camped workers and riverside dwellers Two recent situations exemplify this fact: In the Wawi Indigenous Land (TI) of the Khisêtjê people, in Xingú, the community changed the location of the village due to the 'smell of poison' or the drift of pesticides coming from the crops, which are at the limits of its Indigenous Land. There are also reports on the advance of crops into the TIs and the increase in health problems such as fever, headache, itchy skin and illness in children, a situation also reported in the village of Tangurinho, belonging to the Kalapalo people, whose crops are located in less than 1 km away29. Its leaders have discussed the advance of deforestation and crops in the surroundings and over the Xingu territory, increased fish mortality in rivers close to crops, pesticide spraying on indigenous lands. These leaders have searched in vain for strategies to contain the environmental impacts on their territories. However, in addition to the “smell of pesticides”, there is a reduction in the availability of hunting and fishing, as well as the difficulty of producing food, affecting food security and health in indigenous territories30. Recently, a Quilombola community in the Pantanal region of Mato Grosso suffered from chemical dust derived from the surrounding soy plantations, leading about 15 people, including children, adolescents and adults to seek assistance at the Health Unit after presenting signs and symptoms of intoxication acute, such as headaches, breathing difficulties, nausea, vomiting and dizziness31. In the community, which borders directly on the crop, there was spraying less than 10 meters away from the houses, making it impossible to produce food, as the plants dry up/die every time pesticide spraying occurs in neighboring areas, according to residents. In the state of Mato Grosso, reports of aerial spraying and pesticide drift over indigenous territories, quilombolas, agrarian reform settlements and family farming units are widely reported, especially in municipalities with intense agricultural production and use of pesticides. Conflicts over land and the right to produce food in Mato Grosso represent an unequal dispute, showing on the one hand the large producers of agricultural commodities with land, financial, political and ideological support and unsustainable production, and on the other hand, workers and workers family rural, organized in social movements fighting for land (MST, FETAGRI), indigenous peoples, riverside dwellers and quilombolas. The
latter fight for access to land or the means and resources necessary for its production, they
do not have the support of public policies and do not obtain support to produce and market
food in a sustainable production system. In this logic, we see the land of work being
dominated by the land of business, where the difference in the social use of land is its
form and intention of exploitation. Work land is family and worker land, whereas
business land is owned by capitalists and exclusively for profit32.
“In my opinion, sustainable is working to sustain life, surviving from that there
(pointing to the plantation/garden). U A large farm enterprise is not sustainable, it
sustains agribusiness. What is left of the soy here? Everything goes to other
countries, here is what? Deforestation, poison, that's what's left. Soybeans don't
stay in the city, everything goes abroad, everything goes away. And if you go to
the market, everything comes and goes, there is nothing from the city”. (Interview
with rural worker from the Nova Conquista II Settlement, in Novo Mundo-MT,
2019).
Thus, it appears that the socioeconomic environment of rural settlement conditions their
development and that in Mato Grosso rural settlements are crossed by a hostile
environment dominated by large agro-industrial, hydroelectric and mining projects,
which added to the lack of technical incentive and financing , in addition to conflicts,
impacts the production of food in family farming, they also generate conflicts, violence
and social suffering.
However, there is a movement of resistance and struggle against the current of
agribusiness17, where workers seek, through the struggle for land in the community, a
way to be free, as more than a way of working, living in the land can provide workers
with humanized activities, develop their potential and live in a situation of solidarity,
where the land actually fulfills its social role, since those who live on it and have an
emotional bond with the rural way of life.
Concluding remarks
The necessary transformations for the Food Systems require a broad discussion
that goes from the profile of food production and consumption and aspects related to the
production chains, to the impacts on the territories and ways of life of the affected
populations.When questioning whether the production of a territory aims at the production of
food or goods, the (over)valorization of the economic condition is unveiled at the expense
of promoting the health of environments and people. These elements are implicit in social
structures and relationships and are reflected in health. We summarize that agricultural
production in Mato Grosso stands out as an example of: imposition of transgenic and
chemical contamination of food and commodities; difficulty in producing food in
sufficient quantity and diversity for local supply; “imported” contamination of food
purchased from other locations and “exported” contamination to other territories and
countries, derived from the production of commodities.
In all these situations there are economic factors involved, but their nuances go
beyond the production and reproduction of goods. They form a social, political and
ideological fabric of valuing the economic factor that is legitimized by the discourse and
the imposition of a single possible and efficient production model, whose logic is "to
produce to feed humanity" but hides its true purposes of maximizing the profits of large
corporations from the exploitation of natural resources in production territories and the
people who live there.
The research results and the testimonies presented in this text reflect the reality of
Mato Grosso, whose logic of environmental exploitation and population impoverishment
has worsened in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, contrasting with a phenomenon
of capital accumulation and agricultural production records among the great rural
producers in Brazil. While the majority of the state's population is lacking in their
fundamental rights, subject to unemployment, precarious employment and food
insecurity, in this world's granary” - a large producer of soy, corn, cotton, beef, pork and
poultry- it is not uncommon to observe hunger among the most vulnerable population.
Therefore, it is necessary to support the communities of family farmers, riverside
dwellers, quilombolas and indigenous people with public policies for financing,
supporting and managing the production and marketing of food in a healthy and
sustainable manner, according to agroecological production models, as well as socially
and culturally fair. It is necessary to discuss which food system we want, which paths to
promote an ecologically committed production with health and food sovereignty.A view from the ground: agrarian reform and the difficulties
of living off the land in Mato Grosso
Brazilian agriculture began to incorporate modernization in the countryside, with
the insertion of capitalism that changed the way of producing and also of living in the
rural world. With this, a process of occupation of the Midwest and North regions of Brazil
was triggered in the 50s, including the takeover of the region by large companies and
economic groups, generating a high concentration of land, making agriculture a business
field. On the other hand, this whole movement brought environmental problems and
social injustices, with a change in the paradigm of work in the rural environment, since
small producers were expropriated, generating impoverishment of rural and indigenous
populations, in addition to excluding them from state benefits . Such situations generated
land conflicts and consequently increased violence in the countryside (BRAZIL, 2012;
GRAZIANO NETO, 1982).
Despite this production model that concentrates land in the hands of a few, there
is a resistance movement in the countryside, where workers who were expropriated and
who had to go through migration experiences in search of work, organize themselves in
the struggle for a right to return from where they left: the land. One worker interviewed,
who currently resides in the agrarian reform settlement, Nova Conquista II, in the
northern region of Mato Grosso, reported that he was born in the backlands of Bahia, as
was his entire family, and the family did not have to live in camp and fight for the land.
Already in his generation, he had to leave his family's property to work and began the
migration process to Paraná, until arriving in Mato Grosso, always working on farms.
“(...) All his life I was looking for work and also thinking about getting a piece of
land. The problem is that working on a farm does not help to get the land. And
when the possibility of fighting for land arose, I quit my job to get it. I fought,
suffered and arrived. I've already been threatened, I've been sworn in, and I'm
here.” (Rural worker, Rural Settlement Nova Conquista II, December 2019)”.
In the above report, the desire to have a rural property for production and
subsistence is evidenced, which was only possible to achieve through struggle and
agrarian reform, however the path was not easy, due to conflicts and violence in the
countryside.The land issue in Mato Grosso, which followed the logic of the insertion of
capitalism in the countryside (MARTINS, 1992), also took on different forms of social
organization of production in the countryside and forms of land use, which have
combined small peasant units, communities indigenous peoples, agricultural and agro-
industrial companies, and the main force is the rural company, which makes capitalist use
of land through the exploitation of production aimed at the foreign market, increasingly
limiting the production of local consumption (MORENO, 2007).
With the modernization of agriculture, the State channeled its forces to benefit
large producers and export culture, on the other hand, there is a lack of assistance from
small agricultural producers and family farming (SOTO, 2002), as can be seen in the
report below of the rural worker who has been settled for two years, and despite this, still
cannot live off his own production:
“So far I haven't been able to get income from the land alone, I'm planting it for
consumption. No one from the settlement is taking income yet. Who manages to
sell is a small thing, because no one has taken the resource yet. To be able to get
income from the land, you need a lot, because nowadays, without government
help, people do nothing. The government could help by encouraging, if it had the
good will (...). Here for the time being, he has stopped, he has no recourse, he only
has the strength of his arms” (Rural worker, Rural Settlement Nova Conquista II,
December 2019).
From this report, it is reflected that while the large latifundium dominates the
agrarian economy, there will be no equality in the countryside, because even with the
distribution of land, this action by itself does not offer decent conditions for the rural
population to live on the land, having access to infrastructure, technical guidance,
financing and access to public policies.
This is a significant counterpoint for discussing food issues, as while large groups
are financed and supported by the government to produce commodities that are generally
exported, family farming that produces food suffers from the lack of land, lack of
incentives, with social pressures in the countryside, in addition to not having sovereignty
in their production, since agroecological agriculture is compromised due to the imposition
of the agribusiness production model:“In the planting of crops there is poison, it is what is most in the land. Even if you
don't use poison, but the neighbor uses it there and through the air arrives. There
are many diseases because of the poison, I mean, it's not good for us. It's in the
grass too. If you talk about planting papaya, papaya here ui does not come out.
Watermelon goes up to a height and then splits in half. (...) Mining ends up with
the land. There are two hydroelectric plants and it has already been a problem, as
it occupied a lot of productive land (...).”
This report highlights an unsustainable capitalist production system, which
commodified the countryside and compromised territories, contaminating the air, water,
soil, and also the health of the population. And even with a resistance movement, even
when it is possible for small producers to access land, the production of family farming
is compromised due to the production model that agribusiness unleashes.
The dismantling of territorial public policies and Brazil's
return to the world hunger map
The Brazilian political and economic situation was profoundly changed after
Lula's arrival as president in 2003. In the wake of the project to fight hunger, accumulated
by the Workers' Party (PT), one of the first measures of the composition of a
neodevelopmentalist state was the creation of the Food Acquisition Program (PAA). It
structured the insertion of peasant agriculture into institutional markets, with a view to
generating income and shaping food and nutrition security and sovereignty in the city and
in the countryside.
In Brazil, the elaboration of public policies, effectively, aimed at peasants, is
relatively recent, having its origin in the National Program for Strengthening Family
Agriculture (PRONAF), implemented in 1996. This is a relevant milestone, as stated by
Teixeira (2002, p. 3): “Public policies aim to respond to demands, mainly from
marginalized sectors of society, considered as vulnerable. These demands are interpreted
by those in power, but influenced by an agenda that is created in civil society through
pressure and social mobilization.”Furthermore, it is necessary to contextualize the intention of the Brazilian State
in formulating and improving the institutional design of public policies such as the Food
Acquisition Program (PAA), the National School Food Program (PNAE), the National
Program for the Protection and Use of Biodiesel ( PNPB) among others. From this, we
seek to understand its effect on the reduction of socioeconomic inequalities, historically
present in the Brazilian countryside.
The understanding of the territorial effects and the real intentionality of recent
public policies for food production with a view to food sovereignty and the actions taken
by peasants to (Re)Exist the attacks suffered daily by advances in the agricultural frontier,
rooted in agro-hydrobusiness and , more recently, due to the orchestrated destruction
within the governmental composition that takes the Brazilian State by storm after the
Institutional Coup of 2016, it gains new contours with the 2018 electoral result and the
interests of national and foreign capital that have manifested themselves since then.
The dismantling implemented by the current government, with the sharp budget
reduction and extinction of important bodies such as CONSEA (National Council for
Food and Nutritional Security) among others, means one of the biggest setbacks in the
public policy of production of food security and sovereignty in Brazil.
Territorial policies appropriate to socio-biodiversity denote the importance of
(Re)Existence actions by rural and forest subjects. It is through these policies that
improvements were made to produce and market, resulting in the offer of healthy food
for the countryside and cities. However, the meager conquests for the subjects of the land,
achieved with great difficulty, in the last decades, are vanished in the violent political
action in Pockets.
According to Mendonça (2021, press) the differences between resistance and
(Re)Existence are not only within the scope of being governmental or non-governmental,
although this issue is relevant. But the central issue is the constitution and formation of
political actions based on interests permeated by sociocultural practices and in
confronting the State, the capital (large estates, rural companies, agribusiness, mining,
financial capital), that is, in the concrete spatial reality, in which the subjects of the
struggle are the protagonists, even if they are linked to social movements and not just
supporters or even denouncers from academic narratives and/or from different entities.Public policies as an instrument of (Re)Existence - the PAA
The PAA – National Food Acquisition Program – established by Article 19 of
Law No. 10.696, of July 2, 2003 – was based on the marketing and distribution of food,
involving a beneficiary supplier public – farmers and a receiving beneficiary public –
people in a situation of nutritional vulnerability, being integrated into the National System
of Food and Nutritional Security (SISAN) from Decree No. 7775, of July 4, 2012.
Regarding operationalization, Delgado (2013, p. 18) reveals that “[...] family
associations and cooperatives play a crucial role in the organization of farmers to
participate in the PAA”, representing an incentive to the organization and social
mobilization of farmers for insertion in this institutional market.
After 10 years of operation, the institutional balance of the PAA evidenced a
clear expansion from the evolution of its structuring elements, such as: invested resources,
expansion of the beneficiary public with an increase in the number of supplier farmers
and people and entities served, in addition to amount of food purchased/
including “the introduction of the 30% quota, applicable to 45 million basic
education students” and “significant addition of budgetary resources to the PAA for the
period 2011-2014 (average programmed annual growth of 45.0%)” ( DELGADO, 2013,
p.13).
Indeed, the implementation of the PAA represented an "important way of
diversifying the diet of beneficiaries" (Brasil, 2010, p. 21) with the foods that are offered
by farmers - including vegetables, fruits, cereals, milk and dairy products, baked goods,
honey, sweets and fruit pulps. In this sense, there is also a plurality of the beneficiary-
consuming public, as even with a predominance of schools, other entities were included,
such as charitable associations, day care centers, hospitals, shelters, hostels, community
associations, child support, religious institutions, elderly care, among others. All of this
reiterates the centrality of peasant agriculture for the production of healthy food in the
country and the achievement of food and nutritional security and, above all, in the
constitution of food sovereignty.
Peixoto and Oliveira (2020) emphasizes that the PAA was structured as a public
policy for the creation of institutional markets and was forged in the context of building
food and nutrition security and sovereignty. In the field, the target audience was made up
of suppliers in accordance with Law 11.326/2006, which establishes the guidelines forthe formulation of the National Policy on Family Agriculture and rural family businesses.
In article 3, §2 says verbatim that beneficiaries of this Law are communities of: i) forest
dwellers communities ; ii) aquaculturists; iii) extractivists; iv) fisherpeople (artisanal); v)
indigenous peoples; vi) remnant communities of rural quilombos and other traditional
peoples and communities. (The last two groups of beneficiaries were included by Law
No. 12,512 of 2011)
In the urban area, the benefited public was characterized as consumers, who are
individuals in a situation of food and nutritional insecurity and those served by the social
assistance network and food and nutrition equipment (BRASIL, 2003). The PAA had a
gradual and sustained growth until 2013, when its functioning was compromised by the
unfolding of the global economic crisis, which reverberated in the investment capacity of
the Brazilian State, generated the national political crisis, and resulted in the coup
parliamentarian-legal-media, who deposed President Dilma Rousseff in 2016.
Public policies as an instrument of (Re)Existence - the PNAE
Food is in dispute. This is an assertion that deeply troubles us. When the recent
school feeding policies were implemented in the Municipality of Catalão in Goiás,
between 2013 and 2016, in which we participated in the government structure, social and
territorial control was influenced by the large agro-industrial, food conglomerates linked
to globalized finance.
Therefore, it is necessary to consider the role of trading companies and
commodities that, after the Green Revolution, were gradually taking spatial form in the
Cerrado and other parts of the world, with the narratives that the adoption of technological
packages centered on mechanization, chemification, acquisition of implements and
various agricultural inputs would end hunger in the world.
If we had less than 100 million hungry people in the 1970s, currently only in
Brazil data show that the figure of 20 million people below the poverty line has been
surpassed and more than 100 million people are food and nutritionally vulnerable
(PENSAN, 2021).
This conjunctural condition is directly related to the concentrated and excluding
agrarian structure, responsible for throwing millions of men and women in the urban
peripheries with the promise of better days. This process, known by most as rural exodus,is nothing more than the most vigorous policy of expelling peasants from the land,
allowing for state grabbing, in which the lands, ancestrally occupied and producing food,
now clean of people, could be appropriated by modern rural companies and to increase
them with techniques for production and commodities (grains, soy, meat) to feed
European, American and Chinese herds, while the Brazilian people lack basic needs.
Peixoto and Oliveira (2020) also point out that based on the recognition that
global agriculture is an unexplored and, at the same time, highly profitable market,
commodity corporations linked to agribusiness develop a series of territorial control
strategies, among which are highlight the control of seeds that results in the privatization
of the world's food system (SHIVA, 2003).
Brazil's return to the World Map of Hunger
Brazil left the World Map of Hunger in 2014, which meant having less than 5%
of its population exposed to malnutrition and, at the same time, becomin set a world
example in fighting hunger. Understanding that hunger is rather a political, economic and
structural problem in our society due to production relations and income concentration,
as Josué de Castro has already taught us in Geografia da Fome (1984). Achieving this
achievement meant placing the problem of hunger as a priority on the agenda for
formulating public policies in the country.
In order for there to be an 82% drop in the number of malnourished Brazilians
in the period between 2002 and 2013, the State's actions were paramount in the
development of policies aimed at food and nutrition security, with an emphasis on the
Zero Hunger Program and creation the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), in addition to
the National School Feeding Program (PNAE), which was responsible for providing
meals to 43 million children in 2012. (FAO, 2014).
In this context, the improvement of food and nutritional insecurity in the country
is due to some decisive factors, they are: increased food supply and availability of calories
in 10 years; an increase in the income of the poorest with a real increase of 71.5% in the
minimum wage and the generation of 21 million jobs; and the re-creation of the National
Council for Food and Nutritional Security (Consea), responsible for drawing up the
National Plan for Food and Nutritional Security. (FAO, 2014). Such aspects only show
the correlation between hunger and income.In the scope of public policies, the role played by the PAA since 2003 is
indisputable. As the FAO (2014) highlights, it is an innovative program that promoted
the reduction of hunger in rural areas by buying food directly from family farmers and ,
simultaneously, serving the population in a situation of social vulnerability, in addition
to the formation of strategic food stocks.
From 2003 to 2012, the resources allocated to the PAA were on the rise,
involving the amounts invested, the beneficiary public (farmers and people/entities
served) and the amount of food purchased, which greatly contributed to the sharp
reduction in rates of food and nutritional insecurity in the country, as shown by data from
the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) released by the IBGE in 2004, 2009 and
2013, that is, 10 years after the implementation of the Program.
In practice, the PAA allowed peasant agriculture to obtain greater income, as
participation in institutional markets reverberated in the strengthening of local circuits,
such as open markets. The recipient beneficiary public, on the other hand, was granted
greater availability of food in adequate quantity and quality, consuming healthier foods.
However, the institutional analysis of the Program reveals its breakdown, and
the comparison between the years 2012 and 2019 is instructive. In 2012, the PAA
received 586 million reais from the PAA and was implemented in 1,142 Brazilian
municipalities, corresponding to 20.5% of the total of 5,570 municipalities in the country,
including 115,489 suppliers. In 2019, the Program received the smallest volume of
resources in its history, only 41 million, thus only 243 municipalities were covered by the
PAA, which corresponds to 4.4% of the total, covering 5,585 suppliers. (CONAB, 2020)
In fact, if in 2004 food security (SA) was 65.1% after ten years of the PAA's
operationalization, it reaches 77.4% with a significant decrease in severe food insecurity
(FA) (read hunger) of 6 .9% to 3.2%, and that is why Brazil had left the hunger map in
2014.
Data from the Household Budget Survey (POF) - 2018 no longer support this
scenario, because the dismantling of social policies is evident, showing that SA was
already lower than in 2004, reaching 63.3% and an increase in severe AI to 5.8%.
Unfortunately, the data from the “National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of
the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil” released by Rede Pensan in April this year reveal that
in December 2020 the Human Right to Adequate Food (DHAA) was guaranteed for the
residents of less than half of Brazilian households, that is, 44.8%.Of these, 9% experienced hunger expressed by severe AI in the three months
preceding the interview, as can be seen in Graph 01. A higher percentage than in 2004,
when severe AI was at 6.9%. In summary, of the total of 211.7 million Brazilians, 116.8
million lived with some degree of AI. Of these, 43.4 million did not have enough food to
meet their needs (moderate or severe IA). This means that 19 million Brazilians had to
live together and face hunger.
Therefore, data from 2020 reveal that in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic,
the reduction in SA was even more intense and abrupt in a period of only two years,
between 2018 and 2020. It is worth noting that there was a significant increase in light
and moderate AI levels which means job/work loss during the pandemic.
Once again, it is inseparable to guide hunger without discussing access to
income. So, in the last two years, there has been a sixteen-year setback for DHAA. All of
this has shown the "gravity of the superposition of the economic crisis and the health
crisis throughout the national territory, without an adequate response coming from public
policy." (REDE PENSSAN, 2021, p. 49).
Graph 01 - Evolution of SA/IA between 2004 and 202
Elaboration: Ângela M. M. Peixoto (2021). Source: Reanalyzed data for the scale of eight-items, based on
surveys: [1] National Household Sample Survey 2003-2004 (IBGE); [2] National Household Sample Survey 2008-
2009 (IBGE); [3] National Household Sample Survey 2013-2014 (IBGE); [4] Family Budget Survey 2017-2018
(IBGE) and VIGISAN Survey (2020).
Unfortunately, the hollowing out of the Program led to a reduction in SA and a
significant increase in AI and, in turn, the early return of Brazil to the World Map of
Hunger, a cruel reality for millions of Brazilians. This means that such programs cannotbe limited to government policies, and their transformation into permanent State policy
is urgent, because in a situation of economic crisis, the annihilation of the PAA is
consolidated, resulting from the inherent intention of the elaboration process and
maintenance of public policies.
And once again, it is worth reiterating that the agrarian structure remains
untouched, concentrated and unequal. Therefore, knowing that not dealing with the
agrarian issue is intentional from the point of view of state action, it is essential to
guarantee, at a minimum, the Human Right to Adequate Food, because hunger still
persists. As this is a public problem, there is no alternative to addressing hunger, other
than through State action.
Land grabbing, deforestation and expropriation in the Brazilian Amazon
The term ‘grilagem’ comes from the old practice of locking forged documents in a box with
crickets (grilos in Portuguese). Insect droppings quickly oxidized the paper, giving them
the yellowish hue they would naturally gain in decades. The “evident” antiquity would be
an important element for the falsified document to pass as true.
However, if the term is born as a reference to someone who falsifies documents, it soon
becomes generalized and refers to different ways of appropriating other people's lands. The
National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), for example, defines
“Generally, any action that aims to transfer public lands to third parties' assets constitutes a
land grabbing or ‘grilhagem’, which begins in offices and consolidates in the field throughland ownership” (INCRA/MDA, [sd], p. 12s). However, the looting of public lands is increasingly plural in terms of protocols; indeed it uses present day agrarian and environmental legislation to be effective. The plurality of land grabbing protocols in the Amazon In 2009, the municipality of São Félix do Xingu (PA), which covers an area of 8.4 million hectares, recorded title records of more than 28.5 million hectares of properties. By this account, São Félix do Xingu would have three “floors”. A modest building, if we take into account the existence of much worse cases, such as the one in Vitória do Xingu (PA), where the registered property titles added up to hundreds of times the size of the municipality. The picture of common situations of this type in the Amazon indicates that the great land- grabbing coup is still underway. In process and about to be converted into properties through state programs, as we will see below, centering the analysis on the west of Pará, the region of the current “frontier” of the advance of capital, and therefore, of the pressure for land grabbing, in the Amazon ( Torres, Doblas and Alarcon, 2017). Land grabbing in western Pará: from "protocols" to Legal Land Until 2009, the looting of land in the Amazon complied with the following protocol. In the first place, the illegally occupied area was divided into fractions of at most 2,500 hectares, respecting the limit established by the Federal Constitution for the private acquisition of public lands. Each parcel, however, was assigned a different name – the famous “orange segments”. According to the version of fraud, each respective fraction of a larger land area and would be acquired from the state agency, INCRA, in the form of land title regularization. For each lot, an independent process was entered, as if in fact each one was an independent property, claimed by a different person, yet all the while under the control of the land grabber . Although we have not found titles issued in western Pará state through land regularization processes, at least since 1998, INCRA issued an illegal “ownership certificate”, accepted by the environmental agency (at the time, IBAMA) to license the exploitation of timber. In other words, to some extent, the State acquiesced to land grabbing (Torres, 2005).
The protocols were nothing more than a receipt that the application had been delivered to INCRA-nothing guaranteed what would be decided about the matter, even so, they were used as successfully as land documents for the commercialization of illegal land. After 2008, discussions began on an upgrade to the protocols for plundering public lands. Under the consensus around the need for land tenure regularization in the Amazon, the federal government instituted parameters to facilitate the taking of public lands in the Legal Amazon, as if this were synonymous with land tenure regularization. In 2009, through Provisional Measure (MP) 458, sanctioned in the form of Ordinary Law 11,952, the Legal Land Program was instituted. Announced as an instrument for the benefit of the small famer and thus a “social issue”, the MP was prepared by the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA). An inspection of available data, however, reveal the true beneficiaries: although the small land holders, with up to four fiscal modules ( a maximum of 400 hectares), represented 85% of the total demands for regularization, they occupied less than 20% of the area to be regularized. In turn, the medium and large land holdings, which represented only 15% of the total properties with the intention of being regularized, occupied more than 80% of the area that would be regularized, according to data from the National Rural Registry System (SNCR) , October 2003 (Campbell, 2015a; Cunha; Torres; Guerrero, 2011). As main measures, the Program instituted: 1. the land title regularization of all properties with up to 15 fiscal modules or 1,500 hectares on Union land in the Legal Amazon, with occupations prior to December 1, 2004, without bidding; 2. the possibility of selling the land from the third year after its regularization, in properties above four fiscal modules; 3. significant reduction in the amount to be charged for the land, free of charge for areas of up to 100 hectares, and 4. the possibility of regularizing properties with indirect occupation (accepting that the occupation was carried out by an agent). According to the MDA, approximately 67 million hectares would be subject to “regularization”. The data from the INCRA registry point to the expectations generated by the federal actions (or promises) of land regularization in the region as responsible for a true "race for land and environmental goods in Brazil and, more specifically, in the Amazon" (Teixeira, 2011). However, the audit carried out by the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) and published in January 2015 made the serious projections somewhat modest. TCU's work with the Extraordinary Secretariat for Land Regularization in the Legal Amazon
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