EA and peasant empowerment
By Paul Gomberg @ 2025-10-01T22:01 (–1)
Have Effective Altruists proposed financial support for movements seeking to empower peasants such as the MST in Brazil or La Via Campesina? (Marginalized peasants are the majority of people suffering from under-nutrition and malnutrition.)
Larks @ 2025-10-01T23:23 (+7)
If the topic is literally "do EAs help peasants" then the answer is presumably yes since all x-risk related work and much global health work benefits peasants. (Some animal welfare work may harm peasants I guess). Normally EAs don't really use the term 'peasant' though.
These groups in particular I have not seen discussed, but they seems to be basically anti-capitalist groups, and the broader topic of "why doesn't institutional EA support my favoured leftist groups" is a frequently discussed one.
Paul Gomberg @ 2025-10-02T17:06 (+1)
MST has 1.5 million members, Brazilian farming families struggling for access to land and building various cooperative forms of mutual aid. La Via Campesina is an umbrella organization of nearly 200 groups in more than 80 countries.
To my knowledge there is no unifying ideology, even a vague one such as “anti-capitalism.” However, their ways of producing food are different from the capital-intensive corporate farming incorporating petroleum-based fertilizers ( which contribute hugely to climate change) as well as chemical herbicides and pesticides. Small-scale farming of this sort produces most of the world’s food for human consumption.
Larks @ 2025-10-04T16:20 (+3)
Here are some recent headlines from the La Via Campesina website:
La Via Campesina calls on the governments of the world, and in particular progressive governments and those of the South, to do everything in their power to end apartheid and Israel’s colonization.
Brazil: Why should we fight agribusiness?
The fight for land justice in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and across the Global South is not just a local struggle – it is a global one
International Day of Action against WTO and Free Trade Agreements
Solidarity with Palestine and the Sumud and Freedom Flotillas to break the blockade of Gaza
... among the world’s most diverse and significant gathering of representatives of small-scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, food chain workers, daily wage and migrant laborers in urban and rural areas, feminist and climate justice movements, advocates for social and solidarity economies and health for all, consumer groups, other service and manufacturing sector workers – is set to bring the agenda of a ‘systemic transformation’ back on the table in an emphatic way.
I really don't see how this is not a leftist group.
Guive @ 2025-10-02T17:48 (+1)
Note the many elements of leftist ideology (cooperatives, "mutual aid", small-is-beautiful-ism, etc.) that appear in this comment alleging that these groups have no common ideology.
Jason @ 2025-10-07T01:50 (+2)
I suspect that accepting money from EA-linked sources would be, on net, corrosive to movements like the MST. I am not able to read original-language sources, but if Wikipedia is correct, the MST "is organized entirely, from the grassroots level up to the state and national coordinating bodies, into collective units that make decisions through discussion, reflection, and consensus." It displays a "non-hierarchical pattern of organization" that "avoids distinct leadership that can be bought off . . . ."
Even assuming EA funders thought some of what MST does is fundable, it's very unlikely they would find all or even most of it meets funding criteria. (Nor are EA funders unusual in not giving out large unrestricted grants to organizations that do a lot of things -- foundations usually want to fund specific programs, not whatever organizational leadership wants to spend money on). Having big external donors exerting that kind of influence on MST would likely warp MST's governance and legitimacy (which seems to be bound up in its grassroots coordination).
Paul Gomberg @ 2025-10-07T16:56 (+1)
I find this helpful in understanding what EA is trying to do. Is there a place where funding criteria are stated? This would help me to understand more.