An ordinance of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), Edited last December 15th, established new rules for the creation of agrarian reform settlements on public Union lands managed by the agency. The norm, according to the autarchy, creates objective guidelines and procedures, but is the target of criticism from bodies such as the Federal Public Defender’s Office (DPU).
A technical note from the State Council for Human Rights of Mato Grosso (CEDH-MT) and the Regional Defender of Human Rights of the DPU, also in the same state, states that the act may make the creation of new settlement areas unfeasible, since one of the main requirements, for the continuation of this type of process, is that there is no request for land regularization, even if it is a request with evidence of land grabbing.
“This ordinance brings with it a series of guidelines that, in practice, make it impossible to declare the social interest of public areas and, in reality, prevent the creation of Settlement Projects, enabling the land regularization of illegal areas”, says an excerpt of the technical note.
“The mere request for land regularization, even if unreasonable, will have the effect of preventing the declaration of social interest for the purpose of creating a settlement project in rural public areas, thus paralyzing the possibility of implementing agrarian reform”, he concludes. the technical note.
THE Brazil Agencyfederal public defender Renan Vinicius Sotto Mayor explained that the ordinance contravenes constitutional provisions that determine priority for the creation of new settlements in public areas that have not been designated.
“The National Plan for Agrarian Reform is a fundamental guideline for the allocation of public lands, in terms of the Brazilian constitution and legislation”, he argues.
Sotto Mayor adds that, in the state of Mato Grosso, “most public areas have requests for land regularization by illegal occupants, including the division of areas, and requests for land regularization on behalf of third parties”.
The creation of rural settlements for agrarian reform is carried out by Incra in three main ways: the expropriation of private lands that do not fulfill the social function, the allocation of public lands and the direct purchase and sale of areas.
In a note, the agency informed that, in the case of public lands, they can be destined for different uses, in addition to agrarian reform settlements, including, for example, the creation of conservation units, recognition of indigenous lands or land regularization.
“The land tenure regularization of public areas is carried out by Incra in a manner compatible with the land reform policy and in accordance with the manifestations of interests of other federal agencies in order to avoid overlapping with demands for the allocation of areas for conservation units and indigenous lands , for example”, says the municipality. Despite this, Incra admits that land regularization is the government’s priority action.
“The Federal Government has defined land regularization as a priority action to promote legal security in the countryside, reduce agrarian conflicts, encourage environmental regularity and productive and social inclusion of families that hold possessions in public lands. The process of regularization and titling of public areas guarantees ownership of the land, avoiding disputes over ownership, ensuring access to public policies to support agriculture and allowing family succession”.
Regarding the ordinance, the agrarian autarchy countered the argument that it “makes agrarian reform unfeasible” on public lands. “The ordinance determined the need to observe issues such as the issuance of a technical opinion on the feasibility (environmental and agronomic) of the area’s allocation, the existence of proven demand for family settlement, the identification of occupations subject to land regularization under the terms of Law no. 11,952, of 2009 and the preliminary analysis of meeting the legal requirements of occupants subject to land regularization”.
Numbers
In the period from 2019 to 2022, according to Incra, 36 new settlements were incorporated into the National Agrarian Reform Program, totaling 306.7 thousand hectares.
There were 18 expropriated areas (31.3 thousand hectares), two projects created through the purchase of areas (572 hectares), allocation of five federal public lands (42.1 thousand hectares) and creation of settlements in state public lands (4, 3 thousand hectares).
In all, in the same period, around 20.8 thousand families were settled in the areas obtained by the different modalities. These numbers are lower than those of previous governments, with the exception of the Michel Temer (MDB) administration, between 2016 and 2018, which settled around 8,800 families.
In the first government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB), between 1995 and 1998, 287.9 thousand families were settled. In the first term of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), between 2003 and 2006, the total number of settled families was 381.4 thousand. Already in the first term of Dilma Rousseff (PT), between 2010 and 2014, there were 107.3 thousand families settled.
