Belém do Pará, Brazil – 12 November 2025
A vibrant delegation from La Vía Campesina — composed of grassroots delegates from the United States, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Niger, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Nepal, Thailand, Tunisia and Morocco — recently descended upon the “Abril Vermelho” encampment of Brazil’s Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) in the Belém region of Pará. Their mission: not just to observe, but to engage in an act of international solidarity, recognising that the struggle for land, food sovereignty and climate justice is shared across continents.
Framed by the preparatory work for COP 30 and the parallel Peoples’ Summit in Belém, the visit underscored the delegates’ commitment to strengthen political formation, share lived experiences of resistance, and reinforce the global front of peasant movements for climate justice and food sovereignty. The MST itself confirms this moment as part of a wider mobilisation of popular movements from 62 countries converging in Belém.
From Monoculture Ruin to Collective Rebirth
The site visited — the Abril Vermelho settlement — carries a history of corporate agribusiness collapse and popular reinvention. Once this land was dominated by a vast African oil-palm (“dendê”) monoculture plantation operated by the company Dempasa / Dendê do Pará S/A. According to industry reports, the plantation began in the 1970s but suffered massive losses when a disease known as amarellicimento fatal (fatal yellowing) devastated the crop, leading the company into bankruptcy by 2000.
Faced with an abandoned, degraded landscape and land that no longer served its social purpose, MST began establishing temporary camps in the region around 2003. From 2004 onward, families began to occupy the land collectively — reframing it from unproductive latifundios and illegally seized “terras griladas” into a living settlement. One longtime resident, Doña Rai, who arrived in 2004, puts it simply: “When we came there was nothing; everything you see today was grown by the families themselves.”
Agroecology as Resistance and Renewal
What stands out in this settlement is how agroecology is not merely an alternative technique — it is a social and political project. The MST has long placed agroecology at the heart of its strategy, describing it as “viable, just & necessary.” In the Amazon context, a World Resources Institute (WRI) study cites the Abril Vermelho and neighbouring settlement João Batista as examples of former industrial-scale plantation land being transformed by agroforestry and community-led restoration.
At the settlement, families practice syntropic agriculture and agroforestry systems (SAFs) — integrating trees with crops — with the aim of regenerating soil health, promoting food sovereignty and creating dignified livelihoods. While the original article you shared mentions specific parcels and practices (for example raising stingless bees, using pet-bottle brick construction etc.), even broadly the movement’s National Plan emphasises agroecology, food sovereignty and restoration of common goods like soil, water and biodiversity.
Housing, Diversification and Cooperative Economy
Beyond the fields, the settlement reflects a comprehensive model of living differently: families are building homes with low-impact bioconstruction (such as PET bottle bricks), growing diversified crops (açaí, cacao, cupuaçu, maize, cassava, Pará nuts etc.), and participating actively in fairs and cooperative trading. These are not isolated experiments but a coherent challenge to the agribusiness model that dominates food, land and labour in Brazil and globally.
Yet, even in this transformation, the struggle persists: the community still awaits infrastructure such as a tractor, and continues to organise in nuclei of 8–10 families forming polos, as one resident put it: “We need a friendly shoulder in this struggle.”
Global Solidarity and Climate Justice
For the international delegates, the field visit offered a lived insight into how land rights, agroecology, and climate justice are interwoven. As La Vía Campesina declares, “We promote and practice agroecology as the systemic solution to achieve food sovereignty and social justice…” Meanwhile, the MST outlines its presence at COP 30 and the Peoples’ Summit as more than symbolic: “1,300 MST activists will meet with movements from around the world … to push for more ambitious goals beyond what corporate-led climate policy offers.”
In Belém, the message is clear: the true solutions to the climate crisis cannot simply be technical fixes or carbon markets; they must root themselves in territorial justice, food sovereignty and empowerment of those who produce food and defend the land.
What This Means for Nepal and Beyond
For readers in Nepal — where land inequality, forced displacement and industrial agribusiness also pose deep challenges — this gathering offers a powerful lesson. It reminds us that agroecology is not just an alternative farming method, but a form of collective resistance; that land reform remains central to both social justice and ecological sustainability; and that global solidarity across rural movements is critical in an era of climate breakdown.
As COP 30 approaches (officially 10–21 November) and the Peoples’ Summit convenes (12–16 November) in Belém, this mobilisation of peasants, small-farmers and communities of the Global South signals a different pathway — one rooted in dignity, diversity and collective action.
In the end, the visit of the La Vía Campesina delegation to the MST settlement reiterates that agroecology is not simply a production model — it is a political project of resistance that links land, nature, labour and community. And in the struggle for a just world — one where food and climate rights are not commodified but guaranteed — the rural poor are not victims: they are protagonists.