SALVADOR, BAHIA – The Landless Workers Movement (MST) launched its National Meeting on Monday at the Agricultural Exhibition Park, marking its first major national gathering since 2009. With approximately 3,000 activists from across Brazil in attendance, the five-day forum represents a significant mobilization effort to advance the movement’s strategic objectives of land redistribution, Popular Agrarian Reform, and progression toward socialist principles.
The comprehensive agenda addresses critical issues including the dominance of capital in Brazilian agriculture, the nation’s current economic and political climate, and the MST’s organizational development. The movement is conducting thorough evaluations of its initiatives in education, agroecology, cooperative farming, and agro-industrialization practices.
The opening session featured a panel discussion on global geopolitics and the contemporary international landscape. Journalist Breno Altman and Stephanie Weatherbee, an activist with the International Articulation of Peoples, provided analysis that highlighted the declining hegemony of U.S. imperialism in global affairs.
This gathering surpasses the participation of the previous National Meeting held in Sarandi, Rio Grande do Sul, which commemorated the MST’s 25th anniversary with 1,500 rural workers. The current forum demonstrates the movement’s expanded reach and renewed commitment to transforming Brazil’s agricultural landscape through systemic change.