There is a lot of land in this country in the hands of a few people: 44% of all agricultural land belongs to just 1% of rural owners. And there are many people without land. There are around 15 million people wandering the roads and camps, daring to dream that with so much idle land they can find the piece of earth that may redeem them from poverty and the risk of ending up in a favela in the city. This country never had an agrarian reform.

A Land Drenched in Blood

Frei Betto*

On July 25, we celebrate the Farmer's Day. They provide all of us with food. But we don't always repay him with a good bowl of alphabet soup, as José Lins do Rego, in "Fogo Morto"; Graciliano Ramos, in "Vidas Secas", Dionísio da Silva, in "Os guerreiros do campo". Life springs from two types of production: the hoe and the arts, material goods and symbolic goods. The first gives sustenance; the second, meaning.

Brazil is fat with land: 360 million acres can be cultivated. There is a lot of land in this country for a few people: 44% of all agricultural land belongs to just 1% of rural owners. And there are many people without land. There are around 15 million people wandering the roads and camps, daring to dream that with so much idle land they can find the piece of earth that may redeem them from poverty and the risk of ending up in a favela in the city. This country never had an agrarian reform.

The patience of the poor cannot be abused. Here, tired of waiting, they organize themselves in the MST (Landless Workers Movement). For their educational work (around 100,000 children and young people), the movement received an award from UNICEF. For their activity on behalf of agrarian reform, they received the King Balduino Award (the highest social award in Belgium). For maintaining more than 2,500 settlements besides a network of cooperatives, they also won the alternative Nobel, "The Right Livelihood Award".

The MST is the target of those who cannot stand the outcry of the poor, and who are silent before the unjust land structure. Where has Justice gone in the face of the 21 who fell under assassins' bullets in Eldorado dos Carajás? Impunity opens the doors of criminality.

This year, we registered many deaths of landless workers. As long as there is no agrarian reform and justice, this will continue. Brazil does not deserve to be a country drenched in blood.

*Friar Betto is a writer, author of the novel "Entre todos os homens" (Ática), among many other books.