Land tenure in Brazil: The question of regulation and governance (original) (raw)

Land Governance in Brazil. A geo-historical review of land governance in Brazil

and acquisitions, both domestically and abroad. Related to this, I find of great interest Brazil's Selo Combustível Social (" Social Fuel Seal"), established to encourage contractual partnerships between companies producing biofuels and small farmers. The experience gained and lessons learned from this tax incentive are certainly worth taking into account in current debates on alternative business models that allow investments without dispossessing small farmers of their land. When discussing these topics and many others covered in this report, Fernandes and his colleagues have opted to take sides in the debate, adopting the perspective of what they call the " agrarian question paradigm". They have avoided the temptation to caricaturise the opposing view, which they refer to as the " agrarian capitalism paradigm" , but whether or not they have done justice to this perspective is up for debate. It is clear nonetheless that Fernandes et al. recognise the limitations of a binary analysis, and have candidly discussed the divergences, fragmentation, clashes, and re-composition of key social movements, civil society organisations, and debates within academic circles when confronted with some of these difficult land governance questions. This report in the Framing the Debate Series facilitates open debate on land governance policies and practices both in Brazil and globally. The paper is accessible enough to enable wider engagement in the debate. It is also published in Portuguese to reach out to the Brazilian public and the general land community. If needed, a Spanish version will also be made available. I look forward to lively debate, while preparing the third report in the Framing the Debate Series on Asia.

The agricultural, environmental and socio-political repercussions of Brazil's land governance system

Land Use Policy, 2014

Although many contemporary studies of agriculture associate larger properties with higher relative productivity, this assumption has limited relevancy for the analysis of situations in which property owners profit more from large-scale property accumulation itself rather than any superiority in exploitation opportunities offered by increased size. In Brazil, the efficiency-of-scale paradigm has been used to criticize peasant agriculture as unproductive and hide contradictions deriving from land concentration. As this paper argues, however, small-scale agriculture is actually responsible for most of Brazil's food production, rural employment and agricultural income. The paper utilizes a land governance perspective to analyze the implementation of structural reforms aimed at turning back the land monopolization tide as well as efforts to weaken long-standing legal principles that socially condition individual property "rights" in Brazil.

Urban land policy and new land tenure paradigms: Legitimacy vs. legality in Brazilian cities

This article provides a historical overview of land use policies and urban development in Brazil, especially during the period when the country experienced high rates of urbanization. Since most land use policy is enacted at the national level, a synopsis of Federal legislation regulating property rights and land tenure is presented, including a recent law known as the City Statute, which institutes new parameters and tools to advance the regularization of informal settlements in urban areas. A description of how urban planning tools have been used by several local governments, in isolation and in combination with land use policies, to regularize informal settlements follows an exploration of new land tenure paradigms that focus on legitimacy rather than legality. The paper concludes with an analysis of prospects for land ownership and security of tenure for the urban poor in Brazil. r

The rise and fall of land reform in Brazil

2016

36 Abstract – Land reform in Brazil experienced in the early 1960s an initial historical moment of intense political debate without concrete steps to materialize it. But a second and recent moment, from the mid-1990s onwards produced a relevant record in terms of poor families settled and a huge area expropriated under that policy. However, a spectacular process of agricultural expansion and intense technological incorporation was simultaneously observed thus positing an intriguing question how property rights and a required ‘institutional framework’ directly affected by land expropriation and land invasions by the landless groups did not block that process of agricultural growth? This concrete case exposes the analytical flaws of mainstream literature, which requires institutional preconditions to explain development and/or implementation of national policies. This apparent antinomy constitutes the analytical brackground of this article.

Expropriating land in Brazil: principles and practices1

2007

Land reform is an age-old debate in Brazil either as a government policy or as an imperative to enhance social development defended by various political actors. Since the end of the 19th century one finds in literature vigorous demands to reform one of the most skewed land structures in the world. However, it is perhaps correct to point out that land reform, in fact, was made visible only in two well-defined periods in the political history of the country. First, it emerged in the public agenda in the late 1950s and was abruptly interrupted soon afterwards with the military coup of 1964. The second historical moment was gradually materialized after the Constitution of 1988, when strong political pressures and a growing social demand developed. One of the hottest topics when legislators drafted the new Constitution was to increase access to land for the rural poor and the promotion of land redistribution, because of many disagreements about their mechanisms. As a result of the postCo...

An analysis of the regional impacts of land reform in Brazil

Estudos Sociedade e Agricultura, 2005

This article aims to portray short, medium and long-term change processes brought about by the establishment of rural settlements in Brazil. The goal was to apprehend the transformations in the lives of the settlers, in the settlements and in the regions where these are located. The article is based on a study that carried out in some of the Brazilian regions that had the greatest concentration of settlement projects and number of families of settlers per unit of territory (termed zones). The basic premise was that this concentration stemmed from struggles, and that the proximity of several projects has served to multiply their effects.

Security of land tenure revised: the case of CRRU in Recife and Porto Alegre, Brazil

Habitat International, 2004

The main purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether the concession of real right to use (CRRU) has been widely applied by Brazilian municipalities, and the extent to which beneficiaries (individuals living in regularised low-income settlements) make effective use of such an instrument to secure tenure status. Another relevant aspect is to review the relationship between securing land tenure and the use of land as collateral for investment. It is hoped that the paper can be used as the basis for a longitudinal study to monitor progress in the provision of secure tenure for the urban poor in Brazil, by investigating the strengths and weakness of CRRU to the formulation and implementation of pro-poor urban land tenure policies. Findings indicate that municipalities have to overcome problems related to the implementation of these programmes, such as; resistance on the part of the judiciary (at the municipal level) to incorporate newly acquired rights; the need to change attitudes towards the legalisation process of occupied land; and the need to change residents' perceptions of this new instrument. The success of CRRU can depend on the articulation of these issues, as well as more integrated actions among planners, lawyers, city managers, and the residents of these settlements to advance performance. r

LAND USE REGULATIONS IN THE STATE OF PARÁ, BRAZIL: AN OVERVIEW OF ITS GUIDELINES

In: Gehard Gerold et al. (Eds.. (Org.). Interdisciplinary analysis and modeling of carbon-optimized land management strategies for Southern Amazonia. 1aed.Gottingen: Univertiatsverlag Gottingen., 2014

This essay presents the guidelines of ITERPA’s land tenure regularization program in Pará as well as the Federal Government’s land tenure regularization program. It also indicates the existing major problems related to ownership rights and occupation of public lands in Brazilian Amazonia. It presents which legal and administrative changes took place in order to implement these programs.

Brazil Land Governance Assessment Decision

World Bank. 2014. Brazil Land Governance Assessment. Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/22679 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO, 2014

Coordenação Estadual dos estudos para The Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF)