A transição do MST para a agroecologia

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

The objective of this work is to analyze historically the concepts of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), dealing with production organization and work done in rural settlements, throughout the period of its formation, structural organization and implementation of the development process. MST appeared during a period marked by agricultural modernization and by the transition of political parties in Brazil. Since its formation, the movement seeks to validate rural settlements using strategies that permit the resistance of laborers. At the end of the 1980s, MST adopted cooperativism as their principal form of organized labor e production. In order to put this development process into affect, the organization built an organizational structure, with local, state and national branches, based on the principles of its ?theory of organization in the rural field?. In this sense, MST encouraged the creation of production co-ops- considered to be a superior form of agricultural undertaking- in various parts of the country. The work done within the co-ops was to be conducted by a new laborer (?without land?) guided by values and practices centered around, essentially, the good of the collective. The base of this new social representation would be constructed in order to overcome the ?sins? and misdeeds traditionally found in the social sphere of agriculture. Within the conflict of representations, the practices adopted by MST suffered resistance and ruptures. The cooperative aspect of the movement began to enter in crisis, due to internal and external factors. Internally, the production of mono-cultures on a large scale, directed at agro-industrialization and the external markets, wasn?t compatible with the organization of the settlements, which possessed an abundance of physical laborers and few resources needed for plantation costs, dependent on external resources like chemical materials, equipment and machines. Collectivism of work encountered resistance within the settlements, also, causing misunderstandings with MST s national directors. Externally the administration of FHC criminalized the fight for land and extinguished the special credit used for agrarian reform, restricting the political publics concerned with this need. The exhaustion of the adopted production paradigm made possible the incorporation of new elements into the fight for land and the organization of production and labor. These elements aligned themselves to MST in the notion of sustainability, fundamentally orientated by agroecology. From this point, the agroecological paradigm became principle in the fight for social transformation. One side questioned the current agricultural export model, while the other, reorientated the strategies within the rural settlements. Production, before focused solely on the economic sphere, gained new social and environmental dimensions. With this began a process of deconstruction/reconstruction of the movement?s bases, which focused on social, economic, political and cultural specifics built within the locations. Ideas and practices that MST considered inadequate for the reality of the rural settlements for more than a decade, were reinstated as fundamental principles of agroecology. The fight for land and the resistance of squatting laborers gained new components centered on the preservation of resources and the valorization of traditional knowledge. The process of agroecological development presents itself, currently, as the principle focus of MST, which seeks a new perspective for their rural settlements throughout the country.

ASSUNTO(S)

movimento dos trabalhadores rurais sem terra (mst) assentamentos rurais desenvolvimento sustentável

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

Documentos Relacionados