Members of Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, known as the MST, have occupied 12 farms to try to pressure the government to speed up land reform. More than 5,000 families from the MST have moved on to the farms in one of Brazil’s poorest states. The MST said the government had failed to live up to its election promises to have settled 400,000 families by 2007. The government says it has settled little over a quarter of that number. The MST said the real figure is much lower. Brazil has one of the biggest wealth gaps in the world. Nearly half of all farmland is owned by just 1% of the population. The Landless Movement usually steps up action in April to commemorate the murders of 19 activists in 1996.