Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Because local production is key, governments must support local land-use
management and encourage farmers' agroecological knowledge. In both
Belo Horizonte and Cuba, food remains a commodity to be bought and
sold. However, this city and nation work to ensure food access, contest-
ing the market-led approach advocated by the IMF and World Bank.
Thus they encourage new participatory norms for food sovereignty in
which sustainable agriculture speaks to citizens rather than consumers.
Demands for Food Sovereignty: The MST and La Via Campesina
The transition from programs increasing food sovereignty at the local level
to broad policies guaranteeing it will require the participation of social
movements demanding food as a human right and democratic participa-
tion in food and agricultural systems. Perhaps the best known of such
movements is Brazil's
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra
(Landless Workers Movement, or MST). The MST is widely associated
with the establishment of encampments on privately owned but unused
land. They also work in concert with La Via Campesina (literally “the
peasant way” but more often translated as “the international peasants'
movement”), creating transnational advocacy for food sovereignty and
opposition to the environmental injustices resulting from the globalization
of agriculture. While the U.S. food justice movement operates mainly
through entrepreneurial strategies at the local level, these national and
transnational movements offer a variety of scales, approaches, and par-
ticipatory norms.
The Landless Workers Movement
The MST was offi cially founded in 1984, following the fall of the Brazil-
ian military regime. It is best known for its
festas
, or parties, where
landless families collectively occupy privately owned but unoccupied and
unused land. Brazilian law requires that land serve a social function, and
authorizes the government to expropriate land not doing so for the
purpose of agrarian reform. After a festa, the MST attempts to legitimize
settlements using this law. The movement claims almost two million
members, and has successfully created more than a thousand settlements
(Wolford 2007). The MST, and the constellation of national and trans-
national forces it seeks to address, create participatory norms that
encompass many aspects of members' lives, creating everyday economic,
educational, and political practices through which individuals and com-
munities can pursue their demand for food sovereignty.
