Grito da Terra is the largest annual mobilization organized by the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers of Brazil (CONTAG). This year’s edition brought almost 7,500 workers to Brasilia. Some delegations, like that of the state of Rondonia, traveled 48 hours by bus to reach the capital. Seventy percent of the food consumed in Brazil is grown in family farms, but politicians and the government in Brasilia appear to be unaware of this reality. Could it be that they’re eating imported food products?

A sea of people flowed down the Esplanada dos Ministérios avenue to the National Congress and the seat of the Federal Government demanding a comprehensive land reform, decent work for the rural laborers, agro-chemical-free food production, justice and an end to rural violence, and sustainable and socially inclusive rural development.

At the mobilization’s main rally, organizers described the current state of rural Brazil, home to 29 million people, of which 52 percent are men and 47.9 percent women, and 53 percent are under the age of 30.

Of the 16 million people who live in abject poverty in Brazil, 9 million are in rural areas, and 5 million of these are in the northeast. Rural workers earn less than a third of what urban workers make. Over half of all rural wage earners lack social security coverage.

Only an estimated 8.7 million homes have access to clean water, and almost a third of the rural population live in houses that do not have indoor plumbing.

The situation of education is also alarming and it is further proof of the state of neglect that Brazil’s rural communities are in. Around 23 percent of Brazil’s rural men and women over the age of 15 are illiterate, and 23 percent of them report that they have not received any education whatsoever or have attended less than one year of school. To make matters worse, over the last three years some 300 schools have been closed down. To address this situation, CONTAG is campaigning for the development of a National Rural Education Policy, to be implemented in coordination with state authorities and municipalities and with the active involvement of civil society.

The struggle for land

And the violence of a socially-exclusive
and authoritarian model

In denouncing this situation, CONTAG president Alberto Broch highlighted that “The concentration of land ownership and the agro-export model are responsible for the high rates of poverty and inequality, which prevent millions of rural and urban people from enjoying a decent life.”

“We need to bring the country’s process of agrarian reform out of its current state of paralysis, with more than 200 settlements alongside highways. We have to put a stop to the violence from the large landed estates, and demand public policies that successfully address the situation of rural Brazil once and for all,” Broch said.

Brazil has the second highest level of land concentration in the world, surpassed only by Paraguay: 48 percent of the country’s lands are in the hands of 2 percent of all landowners, while family-owned farms account for 84 percent of landowners, but occupy just 25 percent of the surface area.

Historically, unscrupulous landholding practices have led to an outrageous concentration of political power and generated widespread social conflicts.

According to CONTAG vice president Alessandra da Costa Lunas, “Large landed estates and violence are two sides of the same coin. We came out of a brutal military dictatorship 27 years ago, and it has taken us almost three decades to establish a Truth Commission to investigate what happened to our disappeared and murdered leaders during those darks years.”

“There were 832 rural leaders and activists murdered or disappeared during the dictatorship. But, sadly, we are still fighting against that same rural violence and our people are still being slaughtered for demanding agrarian reform and our human right to land. In 2011 alone, 29 union and environmental leaders were killed in rural Brazil, another 38 suffered attempts on their lives, and 347 death threats were reported. This needs to stop,” Costa Lunas said.

CONTAG marched to Brasilia to demand a Brazil without large landholdings and an agrarian reform that will democratize land ownership as a way of guaranteeing the rights of peoples and communities.

Emphasis was also made on the Solidarity Economy as another form of organizing work in the countryside, based on solidarity, sustainability, and cooperation.