Agricultura camponesa no assentamento São Judas: produção, trabalho, saberes e resistências

Abstract

The main objective of this master's dissertation research was to reflect on the advances and challenges of the reproduction of the peasantry in the territory of the São Judas Agrarian Reform Settlement in its material/immaterial multidimensionality. The productive experiences of peasants, work relationships, memories, know-how, struggles and forms of resistance to remain in the countryside with dignity were analyzed. In the course of the text, it is possible to analyze the reproduction of peasant agriculture in the São Judas settlement from the following approaches: the process of conquering territory was recorded, through reports of the settlers who participated in the struggle; we analyze the forms of work and production of peasants; we reflect on the mechanisms of strengthening/resistance of peasant agriculture in the territorial dispute with the agrarian/agricultural model of agribusiness; and we observe the traditional practices of the seed keepers. The struggle for land led to the conquest of the territory of the São Judas settlement in March 1999. This settlement, the spatial clipping of our research, is located in the municipality of Rio Brilhante-MS. Its conquest had the protagonist action of the peasant socio-territorial movements, above all, the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), which actively participated in the organization of the encampment, in the meetings for decision-making and in the negotiation with INCRA of the destined area. We reflect on the peasant way of life and its non-capitalist relations of production and work. Having family work and the production of food for family self-consumption and the sale of the surplus as central. This logic differs from the agrarian/agricultural model of agribusiness whose centrality is monoculture production, land concentration, labor exploitation, transgenic cultivars and the use of pesticides. In the research, we emphasize peasant production within the settlement. Peasants produce for self-consumption and sell the surplus to generate income to meet the purchase needs of products that are not obtained directly from the production on the lot. In addition to the main production, we also find a diversity of cultivars: vegetables, fruit trees and animal husbandry for family consumption. Finally, a debate was held on peasant know-how, with considerations on the material and immaterial importance of the practice of seed guardians. The importance of conservation of creole seeds was verified, which is directly linked to the peasant way of life, a traditional practice that has been passed on from generation to generation. Fulfilling a material/economic function, guaranteeing self-consumption and income obtained from the sale of surplus cultivars, and an immaterial/cultural function, which deals with the reproduction of practical know-how engendered by the experience of the peasantry. It also collaborates with the construction of complex/sustainable agroecosystems, resisting transgenics.