Challenging Social Inequality: The Landless Rural Workers Movement and Agrarian Reform in Brazil ed. by Miguel Carter (review)

In 2015, Duke University Press published an English-language version of an anthology organized by Miguel Carter and published in Portuguese in Brazil as Combatendo a desigualdade social: O MST e a reforma agrária no Brasil in 2010.

Nearly all of the articles focus on the early twenty-first century, when MST activism was on an upswing that seemed to hit its high-point with the 2002 election of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, long-time leader of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), and a traditional ally of agrarian reform. Admirable is the effort Carter made to capture the moment with an impressive collection of important Brazilian analysts, such as agronomist Sonia Bergamasco, anthropologist Lygia Sigaud, economist Guilherme Costa Delgado, geographer Bernardo Mançano Fernandes, sociologists Horácio Martins de Carvalho and Leonilde Sérvolo de Medeiros, theologian Ivo Poletto, and legal studies specialist George Mészáros. While the bibliographical details of their articles is not given, Carter gives the period of their production as between 2004 and 2008, just as the pace of occupations and settlement creation went into decline.

Lending the book greater contemporary relevance, however, is a new epilogue written by Carter himself under the title "Broken Promise: The Land Reform Debacle Under the PT Governments." (The PT held the presidency from 2003 to 2016.) In this chapter, one finds source material as recent as 2013 and supporting graphs that show a steep drop in families settled and estates expropriated since 2007. These figures visually represent the way in which the PT turned its back on its historical support for radical agrarian reform.

In Carter's take on the relationship between the MST (the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra) and the state, the focus is on the PT's decision to ally with agribusiness and minimize its commitment to agrarian reform. During the 2002 campaign, the PT made alliances to guarantee victory that associated it with "transforming Brazil into a global agricultural and agro-fuel power-house" (417). Between 2003 and 2012, the PT government provided agribusiness organizations, like the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), with 21 times more financial assistance than that spent on "MST-related projects in education, cooperatives, human rights and health-care" (415–16). Agrarian reform was sidelined until it completely disappeared from the PT's third successful campaign for the presidency in 2010. According to Carter, MST militants and members were perplexed and disappointed by the scenario, but also stymied. Although the MST continued to lead land occupations and other forms of civil disobedience, their frequency and intensity diminished.

The PT's policies temporarily produced a strong economy. Social assistance to the poorest people and a hold to the process of establishing agrarian reform settlements helped reduce the number of people willing to participate in occupations. In the meantime, rural proprietors, politicians and the media worked vigorously to turn public opinion against agrarian reform, claiming it would only worsen inequality and poverty. They defended "agribusiness" models as the way to advance Brazil's modernization and salvation; that is, as the source of foreign exchange that allowed the country to pay-off entirely its external debt. This narrative turned on a mythic representation of agribusiness that proved extremely potent.

Despite the MST's decline, Carter argues that its support for small-scale farming, local food production and sustainable methods will eventually be recognized as rational given increased awareness of the threat posed by climate change and industrial agriculture's huge role in worsening global warming. According to Carter, "several UN agencies and the World Bank… have essentially made the same calls advanced by the MST and La Via Campesina in support of a paradigmatic shift from large-scale industrial farming to agro-ecology, family farms, and greater food sovereignty" (425).

It's good to be hopeful. However, in consulting the international community reports cited by Carter...