Peasants Fight Back in Brazil

“Hundreds of landless farmers in Brazil blockaded a railway operated by mining giant Vale for several hours. The demonstrators occupied the line in the state of Minas Gerais to protest against the construction of a dam by Vale and a partner company. They left after Vale obtained a court order to have them removed. The action comes amid a widening campaign by landless groups to target major agricultural businesses and multinationals over a range of issues.”

Peasant rebellion has become a landmark of the anti-globalization movement. The most famous of such social movements has, of course, been the Zapatista movement the Chiapas in Mexico, but they are not the only one, only the most visible. Peasant, worldwide, are left landless and displaced either by development projects, such as dams, that might not be sustainable but fit the conception of development of multilateral institutions. Other peasants are deprived of land through the push for free trade, as when NAFTA required Mexico to alter its Constitution to stop the redistribution of land to indigenous peoples. Or, peasants are displaced by large core agribusiness companies to grow cash crops of biofuel crops.

In any events, they are not taking it lying down. Whether they will be successful is another matter. There is not much room for land reform (translation: redistribution of land to peasants) in the global trade system. Moreover, the current predominant development model, promoted by multilateral institutions still gets its ideas from the green revolution, ignoring potentially more sustainable practices. It also emphasizes comparative advantage over self-subsistence. As a result, the concentration of land in the hands of a few agribusiness conglomerates has lead to the fast and massive urbanization of the peasant class in many peripheral countries, with predictable disastrous consequences.

It is for such peasants a matter of self-determination: is it possible, in the global economic context, to choose one’s livelihood? Is there only one economic model?