Brasília, 7/13/2004 (Agência Brasil) - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced yesterday that the government is studying a "Citizenship Package" for youths in the countryside that will provide incentives for them to stay in the countryside. "These young people have to have educational opportunities in the countryside, healthcare in the countryside and electricity in the countryside," said the president.

Speaking at the First Conference on Family Farming, to an audience of some 3,000 family farmers, Lula said that when young people reach the age of 17 or 18, they want to go to the big city because there are no opportunities for a good job on the family farm. "That is why we want to set up financing opportunities for young people, independent of financing by their parents," explained the president.

"We want to make Brazil into a country organized around cooperatives," said the president, adding that the idea was to make education and electricity available to farming families and land reform settlements. The government, he said, has to provide electricity, schools, housing and healthcare in rural areas. Otherwise, the people there will move to urban centers where it is very difficult to find those things, he explained.

Repórter:Nelson Motta
(Translator: Allen Bennett)