On April 17, International Day of Peasant Resistance, and to mark the 30th anniversary of the Movimento Sem Terra (or Landless Workers Movement) in Brazil, Bay Area delegates from the 6th MST Congress presented a thorough report on what they had experienced and learned during their trip. The presentation at La Peña in Berkeley took an honest look at many aspects of the MST and the difficult and sometimes deadly struggle for poverty reduction and agrarian reform in Brazil.

In February, thousands of Brazilians and approximately 200 members of the international community attended the 6th Movimento Sem Terra Congress. Delegates from the San Francisco Bay Area were in attendance. While the primary events were held at a large stadium in Brasília, actions during the Congress included an enormous march, a student occupation of the Ministry of Education building, and tear gas attacks by greatly outnumbered police at the Ministry of Justice.

Speakers at the Bay Area delegates presentation noted that it was the MST that inspired the local food sovereignty activists of Occupy the Farm to reclaim at least a portion of the Albany Gill Tract for farming on Earth Day 2012. After over a decade of struggle by a number of different groups fighting for community involvement with the land, the Gill Tract Farm Coalition celebrated the first Community Farm Day with a spring planting on April 26.

Full Coverage of Report Back with Audio, PDF, and Photos | Landless Workers Movement: Video from the 6th MST Congress in Brazil, February 2014