Brazil : Agrarian Reform for Informal Lands
June 03, 2004
Nearly a quarter of Brazilian territory (200 million hectares, equivalent to the area of Mexico) does not have known landowners because there is no legal
register of titles. During the previous administration, of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the annual average number of families settled reached 80,000, while last year, under Lula's watch the total was 37,000. In addition to these formal efforts by the Brazilian government, peasant organizations have continued to push for more immediate land access in ways that have proven to be as successful. . . . . Read More
Brazil is attempting to promote agrarian reform in a rural context in which irregular or unofficial land holdings are widespread
and failure to deal with land disputes fuels ongoing violence.
Nearly a quarter of Brazilian territory (200 million hectares, equivalent to the area of Mexico) does not have known landowners because there is no legal
register of titles.
Also in the countryside are 1.2 million families of "posseiros", peasant farmers who have traditionally occupied a plot of land and hold property
rights, but do not hold legal titles recognising that fact.
Meanwhile, there are nine million rural workers who themselves are undocumented.
These figures were underlined Tuesday (June 1) by Miguel Rossetto, minister of agricultural development, in his address to a parliamentary investigative
committee on agrarian matters and rural violence.
Rossetto assured he would keep the promise of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to hand over plots of farmland to 400,000 families during his four-year
term in office, which ends in 2006.
In 2003, 37,000 families were settled, and the goal this year is to reach 115,000 families, a quarter of which have already received land so far this
year.
These are feasible objectives, said the minister, because there is more than enough land available, and the settlement process is accelerating. Applicant
families once had to wait 505 days, but now the process takes an average of 166 days.
Rossetto promised also to make a bigger effort to legalise the property of the posseiros and of the descendants of African slaves who live in isolated
communities in the Brazilian interior.
The movement of landless workers, however, has maintained an intensive agenda of protests in recent months, angry about the slow process of settling their
families since Lula took office in January 2003.
During the previous administration, of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the annual average number of families settled reached 80,000, while last year, under
Lula's watch the total was 37,000.
In March and April, the most active months for the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST, Landless Workers Movement), there were 135 takeovers of rural estates,
with 33,400 families participating in the actions, spread across 20 of Brazil's 26 states.
MST estimates that 200,000 families currently live under precarious conditions in the Brazilian countryside, on occupied or publicly-held lands, as they await officially sanctioned lands to settle. The government announced that these families would be its priority.
photo courtesy of Peter Rosset
In recent times, peasant organisations themselves have multiplied, adopting some of the MST's protest methods, such as takeovers of rural lands and government offices, and demonstrations, particularly long marches along highways.
Faced with this pressure from the rural poor, the government announced its goal of settling 400,000 families on farmland between 2003 and 2006, as well
as providing better conditions for the new farmers, such as access to credit.
Minister Rossetto recognised that less than half of the settled families have access to loans or technical assistance for their small farming operations.
And widespread rural violence is another complaint of the landless peasants.
April 17, during their traditional month of protests, has become International Day of Peasant Struggle, in remembrance of the massacre of 19 protesters in
1996 in Eldorado de Carajás in the northern Brazilian state of Pará. Very few of the police who committed that crime have been brought to justice.
The Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission recorded 71 assassinations of peasant activists and their rights defenders last year, compared to 41 such
cases the previous year, indicating that the violence related to land disputes has risen since Lula and his leftist Workers Party took office, a party the
MST has long considered an ally.
More than 40 percent of those murders have taken place in Pará, which demands concentrated action by the authorities, says lawmaker Joao Alfredo Melo,
rapporteur for the parliamentary committee.
There are "indications" that another tragedy could occur in Pará, similar to what happened in Eldorado de Carajás, he warned.
The judiciary is an obstacle in the process of agrarian reform and of curbing violence, the president of the Pastoral Commission, bishop Tomás Balduino,
reportedly told the committee in May.
In addition to contributing to the impunity of the murderers -- as most of the suspects have not been brought to trial -- justice authorities in general
stand in the way of expropriation of unproductive lands that should be set aside for agrarian reform and settlement, said the bishop.
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