Brasília, 11/21/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Minister of Agrarian Development, Miguel Rossetto, speaking to some 3,000 landless rural workers at the opening of a conference on the government's National Land Reform Plan, declared that the administration will do everything it can to promote a land reform. The workers have demanded that one million families be given land by 2007.

According to former deputy Plinio de Arruda Sampaio, a member of the PT, and one of the architects of the plan, the government will need R$24 billion to implement it. However, the 2004 budget has earmarked only R$1.1 billion for land reform. (AB)