The Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) published an open letter to Brazilian society on Monday July 21. In the document, the movement condemns the stagnation of Agrarian Reform, criticizes attacks by the right wing in the National Congress, and demands that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party (PT) fulfill his historic commitments to structural policies for the countryside. The release of the letter comes during Peasant Week, held in honor of Rural Workers’ Day, celebrated on July 25.
With the slogan “For Brazil to feed itself, Popular Agrarian Reform!”, Peasant Week is marked by mobilizations across the country. The MST letter echoes the feeling of dissatisfaction among those living on MST encampments and settlements with the lack of concrete measures for land democratization and the strengthening of peasant family farming. According to the movement, more than 122,000 families remain in 1,250 encampments waiting for land to live and produce.
The text states that Agrarian Reform is an essential instrument for guaranteeing national sovereignty and food security, in contrast to “sell-out agribusiness” and the actions of transnational corporations. Among its criticisms, the MST repudiates the approval of Bill 2.169/2021, the so-called “devastation bill”; PL 8262/2017, which allows police action without a court order in occupations in the countryside and in the city; and the maintenance of Normative Instruction No. 112, issued at the end of the Bolsonaro government, which facilitates mining and large construction projects in rural settlements.
The letter also denounces the slowness of federal government agencies, such as the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) and the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA), in implementing public policies. The MST points to a lack of resources and structure for programs such as Pronaf A, Pronera, and the Food Acquisition Program (PAA). It also highlights the closure of schools in rural areas and the lack of investment in rural education.
The movement directly demands that President Lula answer the question that echoes among the families living in camps and settlements: “Lula, where is the Agrarian Reform?” The MST affirms that it will continue to mobilize to pressure the government and ensure that Brazil moves forward with a popular project committed to sovereignty, social justice, and care for nature.
Read the full letter below:
LETTER FROM THE MST TO THE BRAZILIAN PEOPLE
We are fighting to make our collective voice heard throughout the country, which is connected to the sentiments of Brazilian society and President Lula in the unconditional defense of national sovereignty, threatened by imperialism and the actions of Donald Trump.
However, the threat to our popular and national sovereignty has also come from within the country itself, with the subordination of our agriculture to transnational companies and the actions of the Legislative Branch, which represents the interests of agribusiness and mining.
Agrarian reform is an instrument for defending the country’s lands, in opposition to agribusiness, which is submissive, coup-mongering, plundering, and unpatriotic. National sovereignty is only possible with food sovereignty. And food sovereignty is built with peasant family farming and agrarian reform.
That is why the Landless Movement takes to the streets in defense of national sovereignty and Agrarian Reform. We fight for land, housing, credit, and education in rural areas as policies to strengthen Brazilian agriculture and as basic and essential rights to be guaranteed to settled and encamped families.
The defense of Popular Agrarian Reform, beyond confronting large landholdings and land concentration, as provided for in the Constitution, is a struggle for a just, sovereign society, free from exploitation and oppression, and a project to confront the ongoing plundering of nature.
Land concentration remains one of the main causes of inequality in our country, with land being one of the most important assets protected by the elites and its dispute a driver of permanent tension, violence, and attacks on the rights of nature and its peoples.
For this reason, we repudiate:
The action of the Chamber of Deputies which, contrary to the climate emergency, approved Bill 2.169/2021, the so-called “Devastation Bill,” a direct attack on nature and its peoples;The approval of Bill 8262/2017, which allows police action without a court order in rural and urban occupations. This bill may go directly to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies without a thorough debate with society on the issue. Such a proposal violates all legal rights and precepts related to the right to social mobilization;The continuation of Normative Instruction No. 112, issued at the end of the Bolsonaro government, which facilitates mining and large construction projects in rural settlements.
After more than three years of the Lula government, Agrarian Reform remains paralyzed and families living in camps and settlements are asking themselves: Lula, where is Agrarian Reform?
We are thousands of landless people! There are more than 122,000 families, organized in 1,250 camps across the country, who need land to work and live.
About 400,000 settled families continue to wait for public policies that exist but do not reach the grassroots level to improve food production and the development of settlements.
Thousands of young people want to stay and contribute to the development of the countryside, but are unable to attend higher education due to the lack of sufficient funding for the National Program for Education in Areas of Agrarian Reform (PRONERA).
The slowness of the government, through the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) and the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), only increases discouragement and further exacerbates social conflicts.
With regard to settlements, structural programs for human, social, and economic development in areas of Agrarian Reform, such as the Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (PRONAF A), PRONERA, and the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), have not received the necessary and urgent resources.
With regard to the Ministry of Education, it is necessary to guarantee budgetary conditions for the National Policy for Education in Rural Areas, Water and Forests (Pronacampo) to work to overcome the intense and accelerated process of closing rural schools and the infrastructural, training, and pedagogical challenges of rural education, combined with the strengthening of the peasant territorial project.
We achieved an important victory for the Brazilian people by electing Lula president, both in the streets and at the polls. The popular forces, women, Black people, youth, LGBTI+ people, Indigenous peoples, and the working class in rural and urban areas were the protagonists of this victory.
We are committed to the campaign for the taxation of the super-rich and the reduction of the working day without a reduction in wages, which united all progressive forces around the Plebiscito Popular por um Brasil Mais Justo (Popular Plebiscite for a Fairer Brazil).
We will continue to mobilize our social base to guarantee national sovereignty, democracy, and workers’ rights, as well as denounce the attacks our country has been suffering at the hands of the United States government.
Our banners are raised once again to demand Popular Agrarian Reform as a necessary path for building a sovereign country committed to environmental care, the redistribution of wealth, and the fight against social inequality.
For this reason, we demand that the government make a real and effective commitment to allocate land and resources in accordance with the concrete needs of peasant families. We therefore trust in President Lula’s historic commitment to instruct his ministries to act more swiftly in this direction.
We can no longer postpone our achievements!
Landless Rural Workers’ Movement – MST
Brasília, July 21, 2025.
First published on Brasil de Fato.
The post MST releases letter to Brazilian society: “Lula, where is the Agrarian Reform?” appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.
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