Brasília, May 3, 2004 (Agência Brasil) - The II National Agrarian Reform Plan, launched by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last November, aims to generate 2 million jobs by 2006, with the settlement of 530 thousand families. The forecast for 2004 is to settle 115 thousand families. Last year, according to the current Administration, budget restrictions imposed by the previous Administration permitted the settlement of only 36 thousand families through land expropriation and 10 thousand through the land credit program. The latter mechanism allows the purchase of additional areas to append to land that has already been acquired by the beneficiaries. This year, through March 31, 11,093 families have been settled.

The Minister of Agrarian Development, Miguel Rossetto, is optimistic about the implementation of the plan, which is not limited to the concession of land. "The plan establishes guidelines, concepts, and absolutely clear goals. We conceived a thorough agrarian reform, much broader and qualitatively larger than the physical space occupied by the landless families that have been settled. Our reform areas should possess productive quality (the capacity to generate surpluses to guarantee income), social quality, and environmental quality," he said, recalling that, to be successful, the effort will require the participation of the federal, state, and municipal governments.

GOALS

Coordinated by Professor Plínio de Arruda Sampaio, a specialist on land issues and former Federal Deputy from the PT, the federal government's agrarian reform plan was formulated by a team which also counted on the participation of university professors and 40 employees of the National Agrarian Reform Institute (Incra) and the Ministry of Agrarian Development. The plan presents 11 goals, including the regularization of another 500 thousand families, who will be granted definitive property titles by 2006.

This would raise the total number of families benefitted during President Lula's four-year mandate to 1.030 million. According to data from the Incra, 373,220 families were settled between 1995 and 1999; 150,138 families between 1970 and 1984; and 166,189 thousand families between 1970 and 1984. Since, by statistical criteria, each nuclear family contains five people, 2.650 million people will be settled in the next two years.

The difference attributed by the government to this II Plan - the first one was launched in the second half of the 1980's by ex-President Sarney - is that it is not restricted to installing people on the land. According to Minister Rossetto, the plan intends to create dignified conditions for the settlers, combining other social advantages "with legal rules that all should accept." These programs include the concession of agricultural credit in a less bureaucratic and speedier manner; technical assistance; the creation of cooperatives and agro-industries; and the provision of necessary infrastructure (water and electricity), "as a way to create a setting of peace with social justice in the Brazilian countryside."

Consequently, he informs, the internal norms of the Ministry and the Incra, an organ which will hold public examinations to hire 366 university graduates this year, are being restructured. The continuous reduction of qualified staff, together with the shortage of financial resources, is one of the barriers to the consolidation of agrarian reform. 8,989 people worked for the Incra in 1985. There are 5,521 at present, and the situation is expected to worsen with the retirement of 2,198 employees in the next two years, according to technical studies made by the organ.

Another contributing factor to guarantee the application of the plan is the announcement made by President Lula on April 1 that the budget of the Ministry of Agrarian Development will increase from its current US$ 477 million (R$ 1.4 billion) to US$ 580 million (R$ 1.7 billion) by December.

Translator: David Silberstein