{"id":7904,"date":"2022-09-12T11:13:23","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T15:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7904"},"modified":"2022-09-12T11:13:23","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T15:13:23","slug":"brazils-bolsonaro-hopes-land-titles-will-lure-rural-votes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7904","title":{"rendered":"Brazil\u2019s Bolsonaro Hopes Land Titles Will Lure Rural Votes"},"content":{"rendered":"
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for a second term, rides a horse at the the Barretos Rodeo International Festival in Barretos, Sao Paulo state Brazil, Aug. 26, 2022. Bolsonaro is betting on a program crafted to distribute land ownership to thousands of rural farmers as a tool to win over some countryside voters and eventually beat Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the Oct. 2, 2022 election. (AP Photo\/Andre Penner, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ant\u00f4nio Luis Dur\u00e3o is a member of a small minority in Brazil: He\u2019s an undecided voter with mere weeks until presidential elections.<\/p>\n

Had the vote taken place a year ago, the 61-year-old fruit farmer would have supported Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, the leftist former president who governed between 2003 and 2010. During that period, da Silva\u2019s government granted Dur\u00e3o some rights to farm a 26-hectare (64-acre) piece of land in Porangatu in the heartland state of Goias.<\/p>\n

But last month, Dur\u00e3o finally received a title for that same plot, giving him full ownership \u2014 with the right to sell \u2014 though after 10 years. It also will allow him to apply for a loan from a state-run bank, and he hopes to finance a tractor. He\u2019s also considering rewarding incumbent Jair Bolsonaro with his vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got in here during the Lula years, and I\u2019m grateful, but there was nothing in place. I think this document will make things better for me now,\u201d he told The Associated Press in a phone interview. \u201cOne gave me access 14 years ago, and the other is opening my path to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dur\u00e3o\u2019s grant is part of the president\u2019s Title Brazil program, which aims to give ownership rights to some 340,000 people who now live on lands that are either state owned or were privately held but unused. The far-right leader, who is trailing in the polls, is also hoping it will help boost his odds of reelection.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro has often touted the program as a means of settling old disputes, creating legal certainty and weakening the leftist Landless Workers Movement, a key ally of da Silva\u2019s that has long staged occupations of what it considers vacant or unused lands \u2014 though there have been far fewer seizures in recent years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a partial, free-market approach to land reform in a vast nation that since colonial times has seen great inequalities in the distribution of land, with a few farmers and corporations holding enormous expanses while millions toil on small plots to which they hold little if any legal claim.<\/p>\n

Title Brazil proceedings usually start with rural mayors who reach out to the federal government on behalf of local farmers. Local officials and farmers sit on regional commissions to evaluate the claims. Only those who had already registered for earlier land reform programs are eligible.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform says 733 of Brazil\u2019s more than 5,500 municipalities so far have reached agreements to work with the land titles program, though many have yet to distribute any new titles. The AP reached out to 17 municipalities listed by Incra as participants of the program, but only two had the program up and running and offered contacts of beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro\u2019s adversaries claim that the program is a gimmick that will fade as soon as the election is over. While it was announced shortly after he took office in 2019, most of the activity appears to have come in recent months.<\/p>\n

They also note that full ownership won\u2019t come until a final review in 10 years \u2014 and question whether it will solve the problem of unequal land distribution. saying the small plots are likely to wind up being sold to big landholders eventually.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are provisional land titles,\u201d said Alexandre Concei\u00e7\u00e3o, one of the leaders of the Landless Workers Movement. He said the administration \u201cwants to destabilize any attempts to lead a land reform in Brazil, now and in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president argues his opponents challenge the policy because they fear it will weaken the Landless Workers Movement that he labels as a terrorist organization. Bolsonaro is a staunch agribusiness advocate and frequently invokes individuals\u2019 right to own property.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the (land) title, you have access to credit, you increase the value of your property, you become real citizens,\u201d Bolsonaro told a crowd in April in Goias state. \u201cYou are no longer in the hands of those who used you as a body of troops to invade property.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Datafolha poll on Sept. 1 found that 46% of rural respondents intended to vote for da Silva, while 33% were on the president\u2019s side. Four years ago, going into a runoff against leftist Fernando Haddad, Bolsonaro had 36% in the same poll versus 24% for his opponent. The margin of error in both polls was two percentage points.<\/p>\n

Rodrigo S\u00e1 Motta, a history professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, said the government\u2019s policy helps provide access to credit, \u201cbut it doesn\u2019t move the ball forward in land regularization and distribution, which is the essence of land reform.\u201d That\u2019s because so far it does not expand land distribution to poor farmers, but only broadens the legal rights of people who already occupy small farms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is more of rhetoric to say they are doing something, that the administration isn\u2019t standing still,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s Landless Workers Movement says about 90,000 families are still seeking lands to grow crops, and very few of those will gain anything from Title Brazil.<\/p>\n

But the program is showing signs of resonating with rural voters.<\/p>\n

Another beneficiary told the AP she waited for years before finally receiving rights to farm a piece of land during the administration of Dilma Rousseff, da Silva\u2019s ally and successor. She\u2019s receiving a title under Bolsonaro \u2014 and plans to vote for him, though she spoke on condition of anonymity, because she believes her family would not support her views.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like much of what Bolsonaro did, I don\u2019t like the way he expresses himself, but it is true that I see a better future for me and my family because of his support to agriculture,\u201d she said by phone. \u201cI think it is important to be grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Mauricio Savarese, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ant\u00f4nio Luis Dur\u00e3o is a member of a small minority in Brazil: He\u2019s an undecided voter with mere weeks until presidential elections. Had the vote taken place a year ago, the 61-year-old fruit farmer would have supported Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, the leftist former president who governed between 2003 and 2010. During that period,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/afs-prod\/media\/f6c8cad84a1140de99ff0818e1069a6d\/1000.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Brazil\u2019s Bolsonaro Hopes Land Titles Will Lure Rural Votes","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7905,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7904\/revisions\/7905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}