Lula takes on the agrarian reform agenda and brings ministers together; read the details of the settlement plan

Brasil de Fato

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party) has taken on the agrarian reform agenda, according to sources from the Planalto Palace, the headquarters of the Executive power in Brazil. On Tuesday (20), Lula called the Minister of Agrarian Development (MDA, in Portuguese) Paulo Teixeira, the Chief of Staff Rui Costa, the Minister of Finance Fernando Haddad, as well as the president of the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra, in Portuguese) César Aldrighi and the president of the National Supply Company (Conab, in Portuguese) Edegar Pretto to discuss measures that will probably be announced in the coming days to speed up the settlement of landless families across the country. 

MDA said in a statement that “the delegation presented proposals for actions to strengthen family farming, advance agrarian reform and increase food production in landless settlements,” meeting the demands presented by the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST, in Portuguese) on Saturday (17), in a meeting with Lula.   

The statement also says that “even in a scenario of severe fiscal restriction, there were signs of support for prioritizing actions aimed at the most vulnerable family farmers, structuring food production in settlements and supporting rural youth.”

According to the MDA, the agenda included “obtaining land, access to credit, the Desenrola Rural federal program, strengthening the Food Acquisition Program (PAA, in Portuguese), resources for the National Program for Education in Agrarian Reform (Pronera, in Portuguese), authorization to adjudicate land owned by large debtors, support for the national production of small machinery and aid for settlers in the state of Rio Grande do Sul who have lost their houses and rural production.”

Tuesday’s meeting was a follow-up to the meeting between MST leaders and Lula, when they discussed the movement’s political agenda regarding the implementation of agrarian reform in the country and the advances of programs aimed at settlers.

Ceres Hadich, from the MST national leadership, confirmed to Brasil de Fato that “the federal government has committed to continuing debate to advance our agenda.”

Our Land

Brasil de Fato had access to a document from the Ministry of Agrarian Development drawn up this month with the ministry’s proposals for carrying out the Terra da Gente program (Our Land, in a rough translation), announced in April this year. The ministry promises to settle 15,605 families in 2024, regularize another 38,954, and recognize 18,689, a total of just over 73,000 families. In 2025, this number would rise to 80,990 and then 90,470 in 2026, adding up to 295,000 families to be included in Brazil’s Plan for Agrarian Reform (PNRA, in Portuguese) between 2023 and 2026.

The document presents an assessment of PNRA implementation. According to the government, 1.3 million families were included from 1995 to 2022: 32% in new settlements, 59% regularized in vacant plots of land, and 8% in settlements recognized by INCRA.

At first, the inclusion of land into the PNRA during this period would be done by four means: expropriation or adjudication, the collection of public land, land purchase and the recognition of state areas occupied.

In Hadich’s opinion, the program is a good tool for carrying out agrarian reform, but it doesn’t solve the problem of 65,000 landless families in the country by 2023, which could reach 100,000 this year. For her, the problem “can only be solved with a budget”. The movement brought a proposal to Saturday’s meeting that provides for improving revenue to replenish Incra’s budget for the permanent settlement of landless families across Brazil. 

“There is a mechanism. We are presenting alternatives. There’s a real possibility of advancing this agenda.”

Lula and the MST

The meeting between President Lula and MST leaders took place on Saturday (17) at Granja do Torto in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital city. On the occasion, the movement talked about a series of agendas, which included emergency measures for the reconstruction of Rio Grande do Sul, (where several settlements were affected by recent floods), the mass use of bio-inputs for food production and the agrarian development plan defended by the organization. 

In addition to democratizing access to land and healthy food production, the MST advocates access to credit, the National Plan for Education in Agrarian Reform, a reforestation plan for the country’s biomes, and possible cooperation programs for the development of agro-industry in the settlements.

Brasil de Fato contacted INCRA and the Ministry of Finance, but did not hear back so far.