Knowledge, identity and ideology in stances on GMOs

The case of the Movimento Sem Terra in Brazil

Abstract

Various scientists and social movements are involved in the controversy over GM crops. This paper examines the controversy in Brazil, where the issue may in the future be defined internationally, given the expanse of the country’s arable land. It focuses on a central actor in the dispute: the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), a peasant organization that takes a firm and active public stand against GM crops. It aims to understand how the movement came to develop this stand against such innovations, and addresses the main events in the history of GM crops in Brazil, the actors in the debate and the arguments they deploy. A complex series of events and interactions in the MST’s history is presented to explain the organization’s commitment to agroecology and its opposition to GMOs, and to specific conditioning emerging from its own peculiar mode of social organization of agricultural production.