The formation of cooperative its (sixty by 2003) follows land seizures (large-scale for security).
The MST Settlers cooperative System differs from traditional cooperative through social mobilization "transforming the economic struggle into a political and ideological struggle." Over and beyond the (often unforgiving) task of settling hundreds of thousands of families on recovered land the political-economic novelty of this movement lies in "linking up what it call the struggle for the land with the struggle on the land" (Flavio de Almeida and Sanchez,2000).The model of social appropriation includes democratic decision among workers and alternative land use patterns,and participatory budgeting, financed by socializing some settlement income (Dias Martins,2000).The social project of the MST connects production and pedagogy, informing its work and study method of education.