Hunger and the agrarian question: a debate based on the Brazilian reality. (Estudos agrarios criticos e COVID-19: movimentos socioterritoriais e luta pela terra no Brasil.)

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the debate on the issue of hunger and the agrarian question, seeking to demonstrate the direct relationship between both themes, and the existing hegemonic rural development model in Brazil, where the logic of capital has defined agricultural production and distribution, conditioning them culturally to the parameters dictated by the Brazilian State. Based on the above, it is possible to show that state-financed agriculture favors the intensive use of pesticides and heavy machinery, maintaining the historic land concentration and prioritizing the production of raw materials (commodities). The worsening situation of hunger in the world and in the country highlights the urgency of the debate and the need to deepen its determinants in order to promote not only emergency actions, but also structural ones. It is also discussed that, in contrast to this model, several collective subjects, especially rural social movements, build sustainable alternatives for the relationship with the land, the environment and rural communities, and have agroecology as a banner of struggle. The article also brings the actions developed during the COVID 19 pandemic by the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) which, in line with the class solidarity they defend, effected the distribution of healthy foods to the urban peripheries and showed the importance of peasant agriculture to food production and the fight against hunger.