The Brazilian Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), commonly known in English as the Landless Workers' Movement, claims to be the largest social movement in Latin America. It is an organization without any legal registration, strongly financed by European churches.

It is an ideologically eclectic rural movement of hundreds of thousands of landless peasants (and some who live in small cities) striving to achieve land reform in Brazil. The MST has been inspired since its inception by liberation theology, Marxism, the Cuban Revolution, and a variety of other leftist ideologies. The MST has been present at the World Social Forum. It employs a wide range of tactics that range from direct-action occupation of productive farms and public buildings to electoral politics through the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party).

The economist João Pedro Stedile, is one of the main leaders of the MST.

The Chico Mendes Center for Agroecology, founded May 15, 2004 in Ponta Grossa , Paraná, Brazil on land formerly used by Monsanto to grow genetically modified crops, intends to produce organic, native seed to distribute through MST.

External links

• MST official English-language site

Reference

• —, "Agroecology vs. Monsanto in Brazil", Food First News & Views, vol. 27, number 94, fall 2004, 3.