Landless Workers Research Articles

Social networks and economic transformation: Evidence from a resettled village in Brazil

We study the role of social learning in the diffusion of cash crops in a resettled village economy in Brazil. We combine detailed geo-coded data on farming plots with dyadic data on social ties among settlers, and we leverage the variation in network formation induced by the landless workers' movement land occupation. By using longitudinal data on farming decisions over 15 years, we find evidence of significant peer effects in the decision to farm new cash fruits (pineapple and passion fruit). Our results suggest that social diffusion is heterogeneous along observed plot and crop characteristics, i.e. farmers growing water-sensitive crop are more likely to respond to the actions of peers with similar water access conditions.

Framing the Intersectional Representation of the Landless Workers’ Movement on Instagram

Framing the Intersectional Representation of the Landless Workers’ Movement on Instagram

Challenging the Growth Paradigm: A Multifaceted Examination of Development, Disparity, and Environmental Concerns in Modern Economies

In the intricate landscape of developmental dynamics, understanding growth requires a deep dive into diverse factors, including urban-rural imbalances, dual economies, environmental ramifications, and gender disparities. Historically, colonial policies often favored urban development, exacerbating rural-urban divides, as seen in movements like Brazil's Landless Workers'. Furthermore, the dichotomy in economic structures elevates societal equity challenges, especially between traditional and modern sectors. As exemplified by India's Chipko movement, the environmental aftermath of colonial resource extraction lingers. The gender discourse has matured, with campaigns such as #MeToo spotlighting workplace equity. China, post-1976, epitomizes the potential and pitfalls of swift industrialization, providing invaluable insights for emerging economies. Given these multifaceted considerations, the essence of growth has become a pivotal research topic today. Dissecting the nuances of development encompasses disparities, regional variances, and environmental hurdles, weaving a complex tapestry that underscores the criticality of comprehensive developmental evaluations. As nations evolve, differences intensify, leading to significant socio-environmental challenges. This essay unravels these complexities, merging historical insights with present-day implications and setting the stage for future discourses in development.

Novel hybrid ravine vulnerability index‐based identification of potential reclamation zones for Western India

AbstractThe ravine is often regarded as the worst instance of how water erosion is causing land deterioration. The farmers' livelihoods are often threatened by the ravine's expansion into the surrounding 50 m buffer zone, leaving them with no choice except to work as landless workers. Due to the high expense of ravine restoration, it is not economically possible to begin the process of reclamation in all of the ravine lands at once. As a result, it is necessary to recognize the prospective regions to bring in reclamation activities. In this work, the ravine vulnerability index for the Mahi ravine in Western India was developed using a cutting‐edge hybrid methodology. For the development of the ravine vulnerability index, it was determined that the sand, silt, clay, organic carbon, soil erodibility factor, slope, stream power index, topographic wetness index, sediment transport index, and cover factor were crucial components. Weights were applied to various parameters based on the perceived significance of each parameter in relation to another in the decision matrix of the analytical hierarchical process. The number of iterations made to reach a consistency ratio of under 10% to determine the final priority weights for each parameter. The sediment transport index had the lowest priority weight (1.4), whereas the sand had the highest priority weight (28.5). For reclamation purposes, the prospective active zones inside the designated ravine's 50‐m buffer zone, which covered an area of 63,031 acres, were determined. According to the ground truth‐validated ravine vulnerability index, possible reclamation zones were found in the 16,703 ha (26.50%) region of Mahi ravine, which was given extremely high priority. As per the Mahi ravine's land capacity classification, 20,275 ha (32.16%) of it is arable land, and 18,687 ha (29.65%) of it is non‐arable land that is ideal for soil and water conservation treatments.

The conditions for building popular hegemony: Paulo Freire’s ‘inédito viável’ and the experience of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST)

ABSTRACT Paulo Freire’s concept of ‘inédito viável’ or untested feasibility, refers to the exploration of possibilities to transcend limiting situations and transform realities. In this paper, we examine how this idea is related to the counter-hegemonic pedagogical proposal of popular education by the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF), an organisation founded by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil. We argue that the ENFF is not just a set of techniques and methodologies but a formative process that runs through the concrete reality of the subjects involved in the struggle for societal change. We conclude by proposing that the ‘inédito viável’ that constitutes the ENFF gains meaning from a broad, collective, and dynamic vision of concrete utopia involving a clear and mobilising orientation towards the future, a strong sense of agency, reflection, experimentation, and praxis.

Land inequality and landlessness in Pakistan: Measuring the diverse nature of land disparities

Measuring the precise nature and causes of land inequality is critical for addressing and implementing policy initiatives related to agricultural productivity, rural development and within-country income distribution. In this study, we argue that measuring land inequality solely among land owners does not provide a complete picture of land allocation among agricultural actors. We analyze land inequality (with or without the inclusion of landless peasants) as well as landlessness to present a holistic picture of land inequality across all districts of Pakistan. We employ data on 152,582 farm households from two rounds of the district-representative Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey to construct Gini and Mean Logarithmic Deviation (MLD) indicators of land inequality and decompose it into within- and between-district inequalities. We found that inequalities measured without including landless peasants portray different picture of land disparities than that based on measures of inequality including landless workers. Our main findings are four-fold: 1) Land inequality measured including landless peasants is much higher (Gini = 0.84) than that without them (Gini = 0.67), and has increased much more between 2007 and 2015 when landless peasants are included (6%) than when measured without them (1%). 2) In 22% of the districts, land inequality without landless peasants decreased between 2007 and 2015 while that measured without them increased. The opposite is true in 5% of the districts. 3) Land inequality without landless workers is higher in irrigated and humid regions with better soil quality and rough terrain while inequality with landless workers is higher in more arid and semi-arid districts. Districts with rough topography face less landlessness in the presence of predominantly-smallholder farms, whereas more fertile soil is associated with higher landlessness. 4) Districts based on Pashtun tribal ancestral land distribution rights have the lowest rates of landlessness (20%) while districts with pre-colonial Zamindari-based land distribution show the highest incidence of landlessness (66%). The findings highlight the need for robust tenancy reforms in districts with humid climate, higher land inequality and lower landlessness in order to provide land tenure security to landless tenants and protect them from force eviction by powerful landed elites. Use of information technology in registering land rights through geo-coordinates can be helpful in improving land security and the expansion of the agricultural land markets. Besides, there is a greater need of land redistribution in the southern and south-western districts where landlessness is high despite relatively low extent of land inequality.

David Meek: The political ecology of education: Brazil’s landless workers’ movement and the politics of knowledge

David Meek: The political ecology of education: Brazil’s landless workers’ movement and the politics of knowledge

The rise of LGBT representation in the Landless Workers’ movement in Brazil

In 2017, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) institutionalised a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) collective as part of its representative claims on behalf of the marginalised. This study explains the conditions preceding such representation and how this is now negotiated by the MST and its members in the context of land justice in Brazil. In addition, it discusses the construction of peasant and LGBT as bounded political identities. The argument presented is that the coupling of peasant and LGBT representations relies on a convergence of events happening locally and globally, which – in addition to granting the MST important representational value – has resulted in improved living conditions for sexual and gender minorities.

Strategic Entrepreneurship: Goat Rearing

Goat Farming is an emerging agri-business opportunity for all businessmen, professionals, educated, uneducated, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled people. before the 19th Century goat farming is just a source of additional income for marginal labour, landless workers and small-scale farmers. But in now’s day goat farming concept is totally changed because of the demand for meat and high returns in the goat farming business. but when newcomers have entered this business so strategic planning is needed, when you plan your farm effectively then businesses can easily grow and farmers can earn more and more profit from the same. in goat farming to many areas where we need to make some strategic plans like housing, feeding, marketing, financing and labour management.

MST: THE HERO THAT TURNED VILLAIN

The present work discusses the social and cultural role of the MST (Landless Workers' Movement) in the contemporaneity of national politics. Our study is justified by the fact that, at the beginning of Lula's third presidential term, the MST began to practice acts of invasion of properties with greater recurrence, whether productive or not. Methodologically, the research will be carried out through a bibliographical search and literature review in digital collections. As partial results of this investigation, it is hoped that the main motivations that have led to the MST invasion agenda will be brought to light. The aim of this study is to provide the academic community with up-to-date information, albeit briefly discussed, on the progress of land occupation and expropriation in Brazil. The main bibliographic contribution of this research focuses on the work Dialética da Colonização, by Alfredo Bosi (1992).

MST: THE HERO THAT TURNED VILLAIN

The present work discusses the social and cultural role of the MST (Landless Workers' Movement) in the contemporaneity of national politics. Our study is justified by the fact that, at the beginning of Lula's third presidential term, the MST began to practice acts of invasion of properties with greater recurrence, whether productive or not. Methodologically, the research will be carried out through a bibliographical search and literature review in digital collections. As partial results of this investigation, it is hoped that the main motivations that have led to the MST invasion agenda will be brought to light. The aim of this study is to provide the academic community with up-to-date information, albeit briefly discussed, on the progress of land occupation and expropriation in Brazil. The main bibliographic contribution of this research focuses on the work Dialética da Colonização, by Alfredo Bosi (1992).

Shutting Down the Machines of Destruction: Possibilities for Agrarian Life on the Protest Blockade

AbstractThe protest blockade is one tool for seeking liberation from the state while living within it. I offer a critical analysis of the protest blockade in agrarian struggles for land and life in Indonesia and beyond. I specify my discussion with a retelling of a Sumatran land‐back movement of smallholders and landless workers who twice turned to the blockade to reclaim their land from a plantation company. I consider how these blockades and others in Sumatra and Borneo created direct‐action power, thereby expanding people's possibilities for livelihood and autonomy in landscapes of extraction and exploitation. Blockading action is a process that unfolds from within as activists challenge the legitimacy of their rulers and set out to create more emancipatory spaces and territories. When protestors blockade the bulldozers, logging trucks, and other machines of capitalist exploitation of workers and ecologies, they seek to disrupt the infrastructures and commodity flows of the dominant political‐economic order as well as open up new agrarian possibilities. These protest blockades are central to the anarchist, Indigenous, and decolonial politics that motivate direct‐action protests across the globe.

The Impact of Government Agricultural Development Support on Agricultural Income, Production and Food Security of Beneficiary Small-Scale Farmers in South Africa

Enormous Literature indicates that agriculture remains a source of livelihood for about 86% of rural people and generates job opportunities for approximately 1.3 billion small-scale farmers and landless workers. Over the past couple of years, the South African government has been offering varied support to households that are engaged in small-scale farming to improve their livelihoods, income and food security. Although the various rounds of the General Households Survey (GHS) gathered information on the type of agricultural support received by the farmers about their food production, agricultural income and food security status, there is still limited pragmatic evidence on the extent to which programme is yielding the intended results. The main aim of the study was to use GHS data spanning the period 2013 to 2016 to assess how government agricultural development support influences the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in South Africa. Using both descriptive analyses with Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Logistics estimations, the result of the study indicates that the proportion of households who have access to the agricultural development support have decreased marginally by two percent from 16% in 2013 to 14% in 2016. The study also reveals that agriculture development assistance given by the South African government is effective in reducing food insecurity, improving agricultural production and income of the beneficiary small-scale farmers. Following the observed marked gender, racial and geographical differences in households’ access to the agricultural development support, the Ministry of Agriculture and its allied ministries and departments responsible for the implementation of the agricultural development support programmes must streamline policies to account for the lack of support to farmers in general. Addressing such differences is necessary to ensure that the programme achieves its intended overall objectives.

Latin American Civil Resistance and Brazilian Landless Workers Movement: The Concept of Gandhian Nonviolence and Its Uses

Latin America and the Caribbean countries of a total of 33 countries spread over the southern longitude are great example of diversity. These countries are witness to many and many types of experience socially, economically and politically. Politically, these countries have gained many experiences from the historical point of view. It also includes the existence of violent and non-violent fight for political democracy. In some countries a fight also fought for social and economic justice in democracies. In the present article, the study of non-violent fighting in the mass movement in Latin America has been done. Apart from this, a special study has been done on the technology of landless workers’ movement of Brazil’s 1984, important in Latin American countries.in this article, this important and comprehensive mass movement has been studied from the perspective of Gandhi’s technic of movement.

Effectiveness of Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazilian Democracy

It is true that civil resistance is closely related to the democracy and it creates a condition of dissent if citizens are not satisfied by a policy. Brazilian democracy is not absent in this context. Brazil’s civil resistance especially Landless Worker’ Movement also played a major role in the democratic process through the movement’s awareness programme and helped to change the policymaking process. The Landless Workers’ Movement, which fought for economic justice, and social democracy through Non-Violent action against the authority, and the capitalist elites. The Landless Workers’ Movement disclosed the agenda of economic exploitation of civilians in a democratic regime. Their methods of struggle have given two important dimensions to the Brazilian democracy, one is to put pressure on the government through organization and other to make people aware through their mechanism. The present article is an attempt to check the effectiveness of the Landless Workers’ Movement and its impact on Brazilian democracy critically.

Yesterday and today: (extra)ordinary records in an area of agrarian reform in Brazil

This paper aims to present two potential instruments that will address the lack of knowledge in regard to the context of students’ reality from teaching professionals in a specific school, these being: a local historiography (record of yesterday), based on oral history; and a reality inventory (record of today), elaborated from the assumptions of action research. Moreover, the objective is to argue the potential they have so as to avoid, on the part of school professionals, the mistake of not knowing the reality of the context of students. To achieve this, we present a brief description of the experiences we have had with these instruments in an area of ​​agrarian reform with the Landless Workers Movement (MST), in southern Brazil. The study concludes with certain characteristics that are involved in the process of creating these instruments in order to achieve their potential, that is the support of local leaders, collaboration with the community, and the connection with the research.

Rural Children’s Representations of the Land

In this study, we investigated children’s representations of the land while they participated on a place-based environmental education program in a Brazilian rural school. Environmental education activities aimed to foster a critical understanding of children’s contextual reality as residents of a rural settlement associated with the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST). We focused our analysis in the representations of the land, due to the symbolism it carries for farmers and activists for agrarian reform. From the analysis of the materials produced in the activities and the field notes of participatory observation, we identified three categories in children’s representations: (I) land as the provider, (II) land as home and (III) land as the biodiversity. In these categories, we observed children understand land as a constituent of their contextual reality. These results reinforce the pedagogical potential of interacting with land, particularly in the development place attachment and pro-environmental place meanings.

Jornada de Agroecologia: strategies and disputes in constructing an ecological plan for agriculture in the state of Paraná

Using decolonial thought and political ecology, in this text we present and analyze the main strategies promoted since the creation of the Jornada de Agroecologia and how they stimulated and helped guide the construction of an ecological plan for agriculture in the state of Paraná. We also highlight the main disputes between the proponents of opposing agricultural models that occurred during this period. The agroecological project emerged in 2001, opposing and offering an alternative to agribusiness, and was promoted collectively by multiple actors under the leadership of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), which is committed to agroecology and peasant agriculture in the state of Paraná. It quickly became established in the country as an environmental, social, and political movement guided by agroecology, and its most significant manifestation is the Jornada de Agroecologia. This event acts as a space for political and educational training in order to recover, develop, and promote knowledge as well as political, social, economic, cultural, and environmental practices among participants that value and promote agroecology and the peasantry while also questioning and refuting the agribusiness model. This text reveals the strategies and disputes with agribusiness sectors that took place in different regions of the state of Paraná.elocation-id: e2230105Received: 07.01.2021 • Accepted: 02.18.2022 • Published: 03.04.2022Original article / Blind peer review / Open access

Edible Insects a Novel Food Processing Industry: An Overview

Humans are consuming roughly 40 per cent of the biomass that the land and the coastal seas produce is an alarming phase. The rate at which the population is increasing and demand of food reserves to provide nutritional food from the conventional protein production sources i.e. livestock, poultry and fish unable to keep up the supply. A concept behind edible insect farming has its roots from some of character i.e. high feed conversion efficiency, much less water and land requirement and less proven to diseases and higher portion to be utilizable (lack of bones) make insects a suitable source. Rearing and harvesting of the insect is a low tech, low-capital investment option even to poorest section of society, such as women and landless workers. Insects farming provide proteins at lowest cost of 40-75 g per 100 g of dry weight of insects.

The role of agroforestry in restoring Brazil's Atlantic Forest: Opportunities and challenges for smallholder farmers

Abstract Restoring the degraded Atlantic Forest is one of the biggest conservation challenges in Brazil. In a biome with high human presence, understanding the potential for restoration approaches, such as agroforestry, to provide benefits to smallholder farmers and biodiversity is essential in developing equitable restoration strategies. Smallholder or family farmers are essential to national food security, producing most fruit and vegetables consumed in Brazil. Their farms can also provide ecological stepping stones for biodiversity. To better understand their role in Atlantic Forest restoration, this study explores the use of agroforestry by smallholder farmers from the Movimento Sem Terra (MST), the Rural Landless Workers' Movement, in Pontal do Paranapanema. We use quantitative and qualitative data to assess farmer perceptions of the measures which support agroforestry farming, barriers to implementation and its impact on indicators of wellbeing. We find agroforestry farmers report significant benefits in 8 of 18 tested indicators. Attitudes to agroforestry are varied, but common themes emerge including the high value of tree cover for shade and cooling effects, and the difficulties in selling agroforestry products. Our results show lack of policy support and initial investment needs are the biggest constraints to agroforestry, but opportunity cost is not considered a large barrier. Tailored policies and financial measures are needed to integrate thousands of smallholder farmers into the Atlantic Forest restoration agenda, helping to reach biome restoration targets while supporting rural livelihoods and national food security. Further research is required into links between additional socio‐economic and biogeographical variables and agroforestry uptake in the region.