Brazilian president promises land reform and distribution for family settlers

Thursday, May 12th 2011 - 18:32 UTC

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Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff claimed that land reform was needed to eradicate poverty, avoid overcrowding in urban areas and as a matter of justice for the long delayed distribution of land.“ Read full article

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GeoffWard
Small and medium sized farm plots are up to 4,000 hectares. This would be 'quite a big farm' in Europe.

[These sized plots are the ones the Communist Party want excluded from the Environmental Protection legislation now 'under discussion' in the Senate.]

What the article does not say is the success rate of the land given to peasants.

This has been extensively researched and reported on here in Brasil.

Extremely low productivity-to-market, and selling-on of the land given, is the norm for the lands given to peasants - even in highly fertile areas.

Where the land given has already been broken for farming and has been already farmed, land dereliction and living off the Bolsa is the common alternative to working the land.

This is not simply a question of lack of education, farming knowledge, etc (though all of these are virtually absent), it is more that the Landless Peasant Movement is composed of itinerant activists who LIKE TO serially invade fazendas (the large farm-holdings) and government agricultural research stations.

Invasion, squatting and destruction of crops and buildings is the modus operandi (seen many times on all national News channels), followed by quasi-legal court proceedings, buying-off of the invaders and moving on. Killings are frequent in these invasions.

It is a country-wide caravan of semi-Government-sanctioned, and Government ONG-funded, extortion.

Yes, much needs doing about this, but the *opposite* approach to that proposed by Dilma Rousseff will serve Brasil by far the best.
May 13th, 2011 - 10:07 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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riomarcos
It's going to be Mugabe's Zimbabwe all over again... but on a much larger scale.
May 14th, 2011 - 05:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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GeoffWard
No, I don't think so Rio, and I hope not.

Dilma is a disconcerting mix - a left wing pragmatist!

I doubt she will take Brasil to the brink like CFK in Argentina.
May 14th, 2011 - 07:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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