The international economic crisis could harm relations between Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the country’s social movements that expect him to carry out land reform. Organizations like the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) and the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), linked to the Catholic Church, allege that much of the resources in the 2009 budget for land reform have been cut drastically by the crisis.

100,000 families have been waiting for the much-wished for agrarian reform in Brazil but Lula has chosen to give loans to multinational companies such as Bayer. He is also said to have released GMOs.

Local NGOs declared the results of a study that reveals the plight of slave labor in sugar cane plantations, an agricultural sector that has benefited Brazil much. The sector accounted for 36% of complaints related to situations of degrading work. According to one farmers’ NGO, more than 30,000 people have already been released from slave labor since 1995, but there are still at least 25,000 Brazilians working under debt slavery conditions.

One of the main disappointments of farmers with the current government is their president’s campaign in favor of biofuels. Lula allegedly supports the model for growing eucalyptus, sugar cane, and soybean under the current government’s comparatively bigger interest in biofuels which is attractive to U.S. manufacturers and Japanese vehicle owners.

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Via Yahoo! News