In the northeast of Brazil -- a country nearly as large as the United States -- a severe drought has led to food shortages affecting some 10 million people. The droughts are nothing new, but changes in the surrounding world have made them harder to bear -- and the response, especially among the landless, has taken some novel turns. PNS correspondent Roger Burbach, founder and director of the Center for the Study of the Americas, is the co-author of several books on Central America.

OURICURI, BRAZIL -- Early in June, the citizens of this country town in the middle of northeastern Brazil raided a local food market. They took all the produce, including squash and melons. Some they ate, some is now stored under a tarp.

After the raid, the police arrested Edna Elisia da Silva. Edna, 27, is a "militant" with Movimento Sem Terra -- Movement of the Landless -- who gave up her position as a grade school teacher a year ago to work as a literacy instructor in the landless settlements around Ouricuri.

A devastating drought has affected the ten million people in this region, known as the Sertao. There are serious food shortages and increasing evidence of malnutrition.

The situation is explosive. The hungry and landless have sacked food markets and warehouses, seized trucks loaded with produce and occupied large estates.

Interludes of drought amid years of plenty have long been the pattern in this region. But the droughts have come more and more often recently. The last drought lasted from 1990 to 1993, and was followed by only three productive years before the current dry spell began in mid-1997.

Hermes Goncalves of CAATINGA, an alternative agricultural center here, notes, "In the past the small peasant plots coexisted with large traditional agricultural estates. The lands were not exploited intensively, and during the dry years the peasants slaughtered or sold off their cattle and goats -- which were kept as a sort of natural insurance policy against the lean years.

"But all that has changed in recent decades with modernization projects that drive peasants off the land and use scarce water resources to produce specialty crops on large, mechanized farms for export abroad and to other regions of Brazil."

Peasants and the increasing number of landless people in the area took matters into their own hands during the last drought, seizing stored produce on the large estates and in local supermarkets.

The government responded with what many call the "hunger industry." "Politicians distributed food in a way calculated to increase their leverage and control of the populace," says Haleem Lone, director of the international relief agency Oxfam, with an office in northeastern Brazil. "Nothing has changed this time around. Inadequate, and often bug infested food aid goes to those who are passive, with the politicians demanding their support and votes in return."

In this drought, however, the peasants, the landless and the marginalized people in the region are trying to take control of the hunger industry. Events in Ouricuri are typical of this rebellion.

In early June, representatives of local peasant, church, union and community organizations called a meeting in the town to discuss the distribution and control of food assistance. The mayor, saying he "was busy traveling," refused to attend as did other state and federal officials. Angry representatives of the popular organizations passed a resolution demanding that food resources be channeled through them.

In the countryside around Ouricuri, 150 landless peasant families have already acted, seizing three large estates with some 5,000 acres. Many of these land squatters are illiterate and own nothing more than the shirts on their backs. But they display a quiet confidence in their new found assertiveness. Says Paulo, one of the squatters, "we have a human right to survival. We will not let our children starve to death because of the rich landowners and the politicians."

About 35 landless MST members, including Edna's mother and 16-month old daughter, are camped out in front of the jail on the outskirts of Ouricuri where she is being held. "We are here in solidarity with Edna and will not leave until she gets out," says Francisco, speaking for the group.

The head of the squad that hauled her in said she is a "whore and a bitch who sleeps with women and teaches immorality to others."

The judge has barred visitors, including even her mother, but Edna has smuggled out a note.

"I am accused of robbery and leading a raid of hungry people who were denied food assistance at the mayor's office," the note reads.

"The raid was just and necessary. Some of the women and children in the settlement suffer from severe malnutrition, one woman is pregnant and in danger of aborting. All we want is freedom from hunger and my freedom to teach the children and the adults in the simple class rooms and schools that we have built ourselves."