MST's experience in leveraging agroecology in rural settlements: lessons, achievements, and challenges

Since the mid-1990s, the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) in Brazil has promoted agroecology in its settlements as a strategic guideline. Although agroecological production experiences have spread throughout settlements, MST has not yet succeeded in making agroecology the dominant paradigm within its settlements. Thus, the main purpose of this article is to understand the challenges faced by the MST in promoting the adoption of agroecological practices by its settlers. A framework consisting of eight drivers identified as crucial to bring agroecology to scale was used to analyze and discuss the advances achieved and the challenges faced by the MST. Our findings suggest that some structural characteristics of the MST and the Brazilian State impose unique and complex challenges for the project of scaling agroecology in rural settlements. Therefore, we suggest that some drivers must be better applied in a coordinated way, for example, a) investing in less hierarchical processes of rural extension such as campesino-a-campesino (peasant-to-peasant) methodology and participatory certification; b) implementing more demonstrative areas of agroecological production in settlements, and c) advancing actions and partnerships that bring farmers and consumers closer.