10 de mayo de 2011 | Noticias | Anti-neoliberalismo | Soberanía Alimentaria
Rural university
Brazilian peasants give prominent role to training new generations
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They have already chosen the place and the works are underway. The courses are set to begin in 2012. The peasant settlement Oito de Junho (8th of June) located in Laranjeiras do Sul, in Parana state, Brazil, will be the first settlement in the country to host a federal university.
The university is called Universidad Federal de Frontera Sur (UFFS), which will open a new university building for 500 students of the region next year, the website of the Rural Landless Peasant Movement (MST) reported.
Some of the courses that will be taught at the university include: livestock and agriculture with emphasis on agro-ecology; rural development and agro-industrial management; food engineering, aquaculture engineering and a B.A. On rural education.
The settlement Oito de Junho was created in 2000 by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform, a state agency, after the expropriation of a large unproductive plot of land of over 1,400 hectares. 71 families currently live there, most of them are dairy farmers.
The institute of colonization donated 42 hectares to the UFFS to build the university campus in order to “contribute to the country’s agrarian reform”.
Elemar Cezimbra of the Training sector and MST leader in Parana, explained in an interview with Jornal Sem Terra, what are the advantages of having a university in the settlement.
“The settlers and the youth will be able to study. The place will be really decisive because everyday hundreds, perhaps thousands of young people will experience the real agrarian reform. The University will be part of the agrarian reform and the agrarian reform will be part of the University”, said Cezimbra.
In the last few weeks, the MST has made progress in terms of capacity building, something which has become a priority in the struggle for Brazil’s largest organization.
In late April, the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Tarso Genro, announced the reopening of the MST itinerant schools, which had been closed down in 2009, while the Universidad de la Republica in Uruguay is speeding up the bureaucratic arrangements for the creation of a veterinary course for Latin American peasants.
An MST delegation sent the proposal to Uruguayan president Jose Mujica in 2010, who then sent the request to the university’s rector, Rodrigo Arocena.
Besides the support of the rector, trade unions and student unions, the initiative was passed by the Council of the School of Veterinary a few days ago. The School would be the local body in charge of implementing the new course.
