AGRARIAN
REFORM |
IV- AGRARIAN REFORM AND THE FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO GOVERNMENT
4.1 The Campaign Commitments
4.2 A Symbolic Act
4.3 Support Programs
4.3.1 The Special Credit Program for Agrarian Reform (PROCERA)
4.3.2 The Threshold Project (Projeto LUMIAR)
4.3.3 The Emancipation Project (Projeto Emancipar)
4.3.4 The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Program
4.3.5 The Land Cooperative (Cédula) Program
4.3.6 The "Casulo" Project
4.3.7 Other Measures4.4 Resources
Don't mislead the electorate! This was the guiding principle of the government program that candidate Fernando Henrique Cardoso presented to the electorate during the 1994 presidential campaign. The promise to resolve Brazil's unjust land concentration problem through an extensive distribution of plots would have had a great deal of electoral appeal, but wouldn't have been feasible in four years. Instead of making easy promises, a realistic commitment was made.
In a time of market globalization, technological sophistication and stiff competition, merely distributing land to the rural poor would have the opposite effect to the one intended: instead of achieving social justice, such an approach would guarantee the perpetuation of poverty in the countryside. Thus, in addition to promoting agrarian reform policies, the new government would have to foster family-based farming. It would have to formulate a strategy to create more and better employment opportunities in rural areas, increasing the production, efficiency and real salaries of rural workers.
Such land policies would entail a revision of legislation affecting land expropriation and property taxes, urbanization of rural areas, landed property regulations, colonization, technical assistance and professional training programs, and infrastructure investments: roads, warehouses, schools and health centers.
Actually, the government is attempting to reform the agrarian reform: to replace the old, narrow vision, which was based simply on land distribution, with a set of public policies more in tune with today's needs. The government's determined effort to find new solutions to an old problem could, effectively, change Brazil's agrarian structure and reduce inequality in the countryside.
This is the direction chosen by the present government, as explained in the following pages.
With regard to land distribution, the principal commitment the government undertook during the 1994 campaign was quantified in terms of annual goals to resettle landless workers. The government promised to give priority to the workers living in temporary settlements and in precarious conditions along the country's roadsides:
The goal to resettle 280,000 families during four years of government is both modest and bold. It is modest, given the magnitude of Brazil's land problem; it is bold, if compared with what has been done throughout the country's history.
To signal to the society, and internally to the government, that land reform is a public policy priority, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso removed the issue from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1996, he placed the matter under the jurisdiction of the Special Ministry for Landed Property Policy (Ministério Extraordinário de Política Fundiária). This Ministry oversees the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária - INCRA), the agency charged with formulating and implementing the federal government's resettlement policy.
Today, in addition to having a prominent place on Brazil's social agenda, agrarian reform is beginning to overcome old prejudices and resistance. For the first time, there is a public opinion consensus that agrarian reform is necessary. The struggle for social justice in rural areas, traditionally an issue raised by the political left, today has the support of all segments of society as long as it is done within the law.
This is perhaps the greatest victory obtained to date by the agrarian reform cause in Brazil. It can make land redistribution an irreversible process. The support of society, sought by the government and propelled vigorously by the organized social movements defending the right to landownership, has made it possible for the government not only to achieve, but to surpass somewhat its goals for 1995 and 1996, as shown in the following table:
For a country the size of Brazil, the 3,502,252 hectares expropriated or acquired by the government in two years, and distributed among 104,956 families, might not appear to be much. Nevertheless, we are dealing with an expanse of land larger than that of Belgium, for example, and benefiting nearly 350,000 people.
Compared with what was done throughout Brazil's long history, the result is significant: in just two years, the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government has already resettled a number of families equivalent to almost half of what had been resettled previously -- 104,956 families compared with 218,033 (excluding the colonization projects). This represents a monthly family resettlement rate seven times that of the average of previous governments (see table) 2:
In 1997 and 1998 alone, the total amount of land that the government will expropriate or purchase represents one-fifth of the entire territory of France, and will be used to resettle at least 180,000 families (see following table).
By the end of the current administration, in December 1998, at least 285,000 families will have received their parcels of land, about 900,000 people will have improved living conditions, and 14,239,222 hectares will have been expropriated or purchased -- the equivalent of three and one-half times the territory of Switzerland or almost half of Italy. Moreover, the monthly average of resettled families will be nine times larger than previously, increasing from 606 families under prior governments to almost 6,000 (see table).
Finally, an analysis of the numbers presented thus far indicates that the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government has achieved its goals. In only four years, it will have resettled nearly 60,000 more families than were resettled in the entire previous history of agrarian reform in Brazil.
On November 24, 1995, the Brazilian government corrected an injustice that had been committed three centuries earlier. On that day, for the first time in Brazilian history, a remnant community of the quilombos -- clandestine organizations of blacks who had escaped from slavery -- received legal title to the land that they occupied. This was the Boa Vista community, which is situated along the banks of the Trombetas river, in the municipality of Oriximiná, in the state of Pará.
Fugitives from slavery in the 18th century, the ancestors of the black population of Boa Vista hid themselves in the untouched Amazon forest, lived off the vegetation and some agricultural production, and maintained their traditions and culture. Even after the abolition of slavery in 1888, the blacks could not have property because the government demanded cash payment for it, which they did not have. Thus, the land that these communities occupy has always been under the threat of outside invaders, miners and lumber companies.
Only in 1988 -- exactly one century after the abolition of slavery -- did the new Brazilian Constitution guarantee to these communities the legal right to the lands on which they had always lived. In 1995, during the celebration of the 300th birthday of Zumbi dos Palmares -- the great black hero in the fight for freedom and the principal symbol of the Brazilian black movement -- the government gave the community of Boa Vista definitive titles to its lands.
This initiative was more than symbolic; it established the legal precedent for the other remnant quilombo communities, in various regions of the country, to be legalized. Since then, other black communities have received definitive titles to their lands -- and this, too, is agrarian reform in action.
As mentioned earlier, the government's problem is not just providing lands for distribution. If the problem were just that, it could be resolved in three or four years. However, giving away land is not sufficient. The various ministries and public institutions that promote the survival of the settlements need to guarantee specific programs and measures: subsidized credits for agriculture and for the construction of homes, roads, warehouses, schools, and health centers; family nutrition and the creation of cooperatives; etc. In other words, the great challenge of agrarian reform today is guaranteeing the economic viability of the settlements.
4.3.1 The Special Credit Program for Agrarian Reform (PROCERA)
This is the government's principal program. It guarantees subsidized resources, half of which the settler will not have to repay to the government. These resources are for financing the entire productive process: working expenses, investments, and payment of the settler's quota to the cooperative to which he belongs. However, these resources do not finance establishment of the economic and social infrastructure of the settlements, which is the responsibility of the government.
Created in 1985, PROCERA did not begin to achieve its objectives until 1993, with the earmarking of 10% of the resources of the Constitutional Funds of the Northeast, North and Central-West (Fundos Constitucionais do Nordeste, Norte e Centro-Oeste) and with the increase in its share of the federal budget. The Bank of Brazil, the Bank of the Northeast and the Bank of Amazônia act as the program's financial managers. State-level commissions, comprised of representatives of the settlers, of the social organizations and of the government, are responsible for approving the program's financial program.
In 1995, R$89 million was applied to benefit some 18,000 resettled families. In 1996, resources grew by 144%: R$213 million financed 42,000 families. For 1997, the budget is R$250 million -- almost 20% more than last year -- to assist 50,000 families (see following table).
Under PROCERA rules, each family is entitled to receive up to R$16,000, to be paid back in seven years (in the cases of credits for cooperative payments and for investments), with a two-year grace period and a discount of 50% of the value of the financing. The repayment period for working capital is one year. If the recipient repays on time, he will be entitled to receive a new credit of equal value.
4.3.2 The Threshold (Lumiar) Project
In its initial phase of implementation, this project provides a decentralized technical support service for the families of farmers resettled by the agrarian reform program. This is an initiative of the federal government, through the Special Ministry for Landed Property Policy, but its coordination is the shared responsibility of INCRA; the Ministry of Agriculture; the Bank of Brazil, the Bank of the Northeast and the Bank of Amazônia; entities representative of the rural workers; and a representation of the state governments, preferably the Secretary of Agriculture.
The Threshold (Lumiar) Project authorizes the formation of local technical assistance and professional training teams to guide the autonomous development of the settlers. For each group of 300 families, there will be one permanent local team, comprised of four professionals -- two with university degrees (one specializing in farming, the other in administrative support and community organization) and two technicians. The program's objective is to empower the settlers, through a collective apprenticeship process, to make their settlements autonomous as soon as possible.
Forty teams are already at work, most in the northeastern region, and another 250 are in the selection and training phase. The government's goal is to have 500 teams working in the countryside by the end of the year -- 2,000 technicians offering assistance and professional training to 150,000 resettled families, and to 240,000 families in 1998. Last year, R$21 million were earmarked for the project and another R$70 million are planned for 1997, of which R$11 million are already secured.
4.3.3 The Emancipation Project
The rural settlements were never emancipated. In other words, they have remained since their creation under federal government tutelage, under the supervision of INCRA. In some cases, and principally in the colonization projects, this dependence has lasted for more than 20 years. Even the oldest known colonization project in Brazil, which was founded in 1927, still has not been emancipated.
This situation is unacceptable and unjust because the entire society is paying the cost. This procedure has created a new form of paternalism that benefits those farmers to the detriment of the rest of the country's small landowners and of the poorest segments of the urban and rural population.
That is why the government created the Emancipation Project, to guarantee to each beneficiary of the agrarian reform program his right to economic independence. We will consider the settlements to be emancipated when their capacity to absorb more families is exhausted, their ownership situation is defined, their basic services completed or nearly in place, and their community socially and economically integrated into the local and regional economies.
In 1997, INCRA's emancipation efforts will concentrate on 650 old colonization and agrarian reform projects encompassing 180,300 families, distributed as follows: 48 colonization projects, 129 agrarian reform projects already in their emancipation phase, and 473 projects in their consolidation phase.
4.3.4 Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Program
An Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) pilot project will support the emancipation process for nearly 25,000 families, preferably in the country's northern and northeastern regions. In addition to financing infrastructure works and environmental protection, the IDB will provide technical and technological assistance to the farmers. The program's resources will total R$250 million -- R$150 million from the IDB and R$100 million in matching funds from Brazil.
4.3.5 The Land Cooperative (Cédula) Program
This program, negotiated with the World Bank (IBRD), will function along the lines of a cooperative letter of intent and will be the pilot experiment of a new model of land policy, integrated into the market and independent of the government at each stage of the process. The formula is simple: a group of landless farmers identifies a tract of land in which it is interested, prepares a summary legal brief for its acquisition, and presents it to the state-level technical entity. If the proposal is approved, the group will receive financing for the purchase, with a repayment period of 20 years. For this purpose, INCRA will sign agreements with the Bank of Brazil and with regional banks like the Bank of the Northeast, which will initially administer the program.
The Land Cooperative Program can be expanded for any undertaking, including private corporations and non-governmental organizations. For this pilot experiment, the source of financing was divided as follows: R$45 million from Brazil and earmarked for land purchases; R$90 million from the World Bank for financing collective, productive and social infrastructure; and R$15 million in matching funds from the interested groups of workers -- a total of R$150 million.
4.3.6 The "Casulo" Project
This is a proposed partnership of the federal government with the states and municipalities to decentralize and to accelerate the implementation of agrarian reform projects. The program will be launched in the first half of 1997. It empowers municipal and state governments, along with INCRA, to register landless farmers and to identify public municipal and state lands that are available or that can be acquired. The federal government will guarantee the financing and will divide the costs of social infrastructure with the states and municipalities.
If 20% of the more than 5,000 Brazilian municipal governments adhere to the Seed Project, and resolve to resettle only 20 families each, 20,000 families will receive land, in a short period of time and at the lowest possible cost for all involved. This is a good arrangement for the city governments because it is a proven fact that successful resettlements stimulate and invigorate the local economy, providing economic and social benefits to the entire community.
4.3.7 Other Measures
- The First Brazilian Landed Property Atlas: Prepared by the Special Ministry for Landed Property Policy and published in 1996, the atlas shows that the profile of land concentration in Brazil has changed little over the past 40 years. Based on these data, the government was able to accelerate the agrarian reform process and, principally, to reevaluate the country's agrarian legislation.
- Internet: Since July 1996, INCRA has integrated itself into the world computer network. All relevant data of the National Program for Agrarian Reform -- resettlements, expropriations, acquisitions, budget, etc. -- are available to any citizen at the INCRA website (http://www.incra.gov.br).
An analysis of the federal government's expenditures for colonization and agrarian reform projects since 1980 reveals a notable increase in the amount of resources employed since 1990. In constant dollar terms, in 1990 the government spent US$70 million; in 1993, US$459 million; and in 1994, US$390 million.
In the first year of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government, annual expenditures for agrarian reform jumped again: from US$390 million in 1994 to US$971 million in 1995 -- an increase of 149% (see table).
In just two years of government, close to R$ 2.7 billion were spent, distributed as follows:
The budget foreseen for 1997 is almost equal to the entire amount spent on agrarian reform during the first two years of the administration and represents an increase of 50% over the 1996 expenditures:
1997 - R$ 2,597,954,286
2 These numbers are only estimates becuase the resettlement criteria prior to 1994 were different and because of the absence of a resettlement census. (Return to text)