Pipiripau

Paulinho, who works at the national office of the MST, was taking Lungisile, a South African sociologist who works on the land question, along with two young anthropology students from UnB to visit the Oziel Alves II settlement at the edge of the Federal District, and I tagged along. The settlement, called Pipiripau (after the creek near which it stands) is actually a pre-settlement, since the 168 families living there are already living on the land which is to be legalized as their settlement (i.e., not a roadside encampment with little space near a different property to be expropriated), but they haven’t yet been granted legal recognition by the state.

Although the families living there have been struggling for this territory for over seven years now, they still receive no support of any sort from the state, not until they receive title to the land. The land used to be part of a much larger soy plantation, expropriated years before and left unproductive on the hands of varied state bureaucracies. Hence the MST occupation. Over the course of these years, they began whatever production they could, with their own limited resources, and organized themselves politically to demand that the state follow up on its land reform program. Several times, they had to resort to blockading the main highway nearby which connects Brasilia to the North in order to demand meetings with the bureaucracies that have been stalling the process instead of meeting their demands.

There we met Cupim, a young agronomist who is working with the peasants at the Pipiripau on his own account as his MA field work in agroecology through a Spanish university. Cupim and 15 families are starting a project of organic passion-fruit in some of the collective land of the settlement. Other than a few collective areas used for irrigation reservoir, collective crops such as the passion-fruit, and common building structures (for now only a meeting space, but when they obtain government assistance they’ll also set up their own school, daycare, church, community center, etc.), the rest of the territory is organized into 7 hectare plots, set up in four or five groups (called nuclei). Each family then has her own plot and common use of the collective land and property. (These arrangements are made collectively by each settlement on its own terms, depending on the political, cultural, geographical, agricultural, etc., factors of each settlement.)

Only a few of the families are working on the passion-fruit project, since they have very little resources to begin with, especially irrigation, which for now is restrained to a single reservoir (from the waterbed) dug out by an arrangement with a donor ngo. Many families must still resort to non-agricultural work in the nearby towns to make a living, since they are unable to be self-sustaining farmers without enough government assistance, and, which is just as important, not having title to their land yet they are left in an extremely vulnerable situation where any investment they make on the land (such as sowing crops) is a high risk endeavor, since they can be forced off the land any moment.

The majority of peasants there haven’t worked on the land in some time, having tried to carve up a living through whatever jobs they could find in the cities around. And the agricultural experience of most is limited to work in larger plantations that focus on grains and other cash crops. As such, their predominant production (restricted to the few months of the rainy season) are beans, followed by corn. The beans are kept for subsistence the rest of the year, and whatever surplus is sold (in informal markets, since their ‘illegal’ situation as yet precludes them from setting up formal market connections). The corn is used mostly to feed chickens, and some have pigs. These too are kept for subsistence, and the surplus is sold (also informally). Most of these peasants use agrochemicals as fertilizers and pesticides, both from habit, and also from fear of losing too much of their crops otherwise.

The land is somewhat eroded, significantly in places, due to the unsustainable practices of soy plantation that were employed there before the original farm was expropriated. The lack of a strong enough tractor to till the land and clear the rough Cerrado grasses leaves many of the peasants with no alternative but to resort to fire to clear their land. Although strongly discouraged by their own common arrangements, such fires are still used, and often get out of control, resulting in crop loss of other settlement neighbors, as well as the common field space in which many of their chickens roost. Needless to say, such fires getting out of control causes serious problems within the community, who collectively impose restitutions upon those found guilty, and sometimes even resort to expulsions for repeated offences (it seems this happened a handful of times during the past seven years or so).

We visited for some time with dona Almerinda, a charismatic woman from Bahia with deep agroecological knowledge. She never had any formal education, but learned much about medicinal plants from her family. She experimented much with different policultures and varieties of intercropping, as well as with different ways to employ some plant’s oils as pesticides on other crops. Although most peasants have small gardens, mandioca and fruit trees, Almerinda’s garden was clearly more diverse and cared for. She also grows a wide variety of beans, corns, and legumes for her own consumption, unlike most of her neighbors who grow single varieties and attempt to market it. She also has a wide variety of farm animals, such as chickens, pigs, ducks and other fowl, goats, as well as cats and dogs for pets. After having tried to work in the city for some time, and suffering unemployment and hunger, she gave up all she still had and joined the Movement to fulfill her “dream of having her own piece of ground.” She participated in three or four encampments before coming to Pipiripau, because she would always attempt to start her production of crops and animals even while in roadside encampments, causing distress to other campers, who then strongly encouraged her to relocate. Eventually, others in the Movement were able to figure out a way to bring her to this pre-settlement, where she has enough space to have her animals without inconveniencing her community neighbors.

Dona Almerinda is highly regarded in her own community, and also by Cupim, the agronomist who learns agroecology along with her, and also by Lungisile, who was enthralled by her personal story and her productive ability. Lungisile has been visiting Brazil to learn more about our peasant movements for land reform, in order to advance also the struggles in his native South Africa. He tells us that the struggle there, unlike here, is driven mostly ‘top down’ by ngo’s, with very little experience in agriculture and very little ability to maintain coherent and sustainable struggles for agrarian reform. Moreover, settled peasants are now finding that the struggle “for land” cannot stop with the title, but continues just as arduously in the production stage, i.e., on “what to do with the land once you get it.” Hence his interest in Brazil in general, where the struggle “for land” has already advanced to the comprehension of a broader struggle for “agrarian reform”, and his interest in dona Almerinda’s deep agroecological knowledge in particular. For more information on the land struggle in South Africa, see Lungisile’s own websites here and here.

Dona Almerinda told Lungisile that she has a deep passion for Africa and the African people, and that receiving her in her home is already a little fulfillment of her dream of knowing Africa. After their long exchange and after she showed him her gardens, he asked if she would be ready to visit Africa along with him. She, turning red with emotion, tried to say that the people in the country are never ready to travel, but with the reassurance with the others present, she agreed that she would visit if she could. Lungisile said he wants to make arrangements for some people from Brazil to visit South Africa for some three months to share their experiences with agrarian reform and agroecology. He will continue working with the MST during the next three years, and I trust that sooner or later he will bring dona Almerinda to complete her dream of going to Africa, and to advance his own dream of strengthening the South African movements for agrarian reform and agroecological production.

When saying good bye, I thanked dona Almerinda for all she taught us, for hosting us, and asked if I could come visit her again and work her garden with her so I could learn as well. She said I not only could, but should! So we made plans for me to return there after I come back from my trip to the South, and I can hardly wait!

After our visit to the settlement, I returned with the younger folk to their common house in a nearby town for a meal, then we came back to Brasilia to meet another young anthropology grad student, and have a few beers with some other young folk. We talked a lot about our different academic experiences, about life abroad and in Brasilia, about the peasant movements and class struggle, about healthcare and race and gender… It was an amazing time, and after several hours, when my mom came to pick me up, she joined us to talk about bioethics (which my mother studies now at the graduate level at UnB) and public health care (with which she has worked her whole life).

These new friends gave me a Via Campesina flag, which is to decorate above my bed, and invited me back to their house to spend Sunday afternoon with them. I, of course, agreed, with much joy.