RIO DE JANEIRO (IPS) - The largest movement fighting for the distribution of unproductive rural property to landless peasant farmers in Brazil complains that the "euphoria" over the production of biofuels from sugar cane and other crops is aggravating the concentration of land ownership and driving up land prices.
The Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra or Landless Workers Movement (MST) argues that the biofuel boom is just another manifestation of the growing strength of agribusiness in Brazil, Latin America's giant.
Joao Pedro Stedile, a member of the MST national leadership, told IPS that biofuel production forms part of the "agricultural model of the dominant classes, the big capitalists who have built up an alliance of vested interests, comprised of transnational corporations on one hand and large Brazilian landowners on the other."
This alliance, he said, is based on export-oriented production on vast tracts of land, and heavy use of toxic agrochemicals that damage the environment.
The MST advocates a different model, one that is "focused on the needs of the people, and is based on keeping peasant farmers in the countryside and on multi-crop production that puts a priority on food production, without the use of agrotoxics," said the activist.
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